Your Fonder Heart
by strayphoenix
Summary: Jaune's parents discover that he faked his transcripts and stole Crocea Mors, so they pull him out of Beacon after his first semester. If Jaune ever wants to reclaim his dreams of becoming a hunter, he's going to have to do it wholly on his own. Everything changes. And yet, somethings don't.
1. Chapter 1

Jaune doesn't think too much about being called to the headmaster's office during leadership class. He thinks it's embarrassing when Cardin snickers at him from across the big tactical board they're all using, and he thinks Ruby is a better friend than he deserves when she flicks one of the soldier pieces on said board at Cardin with a sniper's precision. Jaune exits and follows Goodwitch to the top of Beacon Tower in nervous quiet, fretting about his upcoming midterms and his current test scores and his struggling performance in the fighting ring and whether or not Goodwitch knows about that one thing JNPR did in the common area…

He doesn't even consider his parents are waiting for him at the top of the tower, sitting across Ozpin in his desk. Jaune's stomach bottoms out when they turn in their chairs to the sound of the elevator. His every sense centers on the stack of falsified transcripts in his mother's hands — on the boots and helmet and guards of his great grandfather's armor that he hadn't taken with him when he'd stolen Crocea Mors from his father's study.

"Jaune!" Mrs. Arc rushes over to hug her son. "Are you hurt?" she asks over and over again. "Are you hurt, have you hurt yourself?"

Jaune finds his face buried in her blonde hair, muttering that he's fine, he's fine, mom. His focus is on his father's fuming expression as the man turns back to Ozpin and demands to know how the headmaster of such a prestigious school couldn't spot bootleg transcripts and didn't question his son's clear lack of hunting talent. As his mother fixes his hair and inspects him for any kind of physical or psychological trauma, Jaune hears Ozpin's ever-calm voice through a haze.

"I was unaware that the transcripts were fake," he says, something in the lilt of his voice when he says 'unaware' betraying a secret truth only meant for Jaune to catch. "Regardless," he says, "Jaune has readily improved in his one semester to the point where he has earned his place in Beacon."

Goodwitch stands beside Ozpin and tilts her head like she's going to disagree, but she doesn't say a word. Jaune stares at them both, wrapped embarrassingly in the arms of his distraught mother, and thinks he might be in shock because he's started to hear and see things. Like Ozpin and Goodwitch defending his stay at Beacon.

His father pays little mind to Ozpin's vote of confidence. "My son is seventeen, Mr. Ozpin," he says gruffly. "He is still a member of my household, and if I say Jaune isn't hunter material, then he is _not._ He's only going to get himself hurt trying to catch up on all the years of training the others in his class must have. Frankly, it's miracle enough he lasted a whole semester with all his limbs in one piece before the scam was up." Mr. Arc turns from Ozpin to stare harshly at his wilting son. "Jaune is packing up his stuff and coming home. Today."

Jaune's blood goes cold.

"The semester is almost over, Mr. Arc," Goodwitch says, checking her scroll to confirm. "One more week of exams, then Jaune can head home for break and you all can discuss this before the upcoming term."

"I will not reward my son for stealing from and lying to his family," Mr. Arc says firmly.

Still petting Jaune's hair, Mrs. Arc says, "Hunting is dangerous for those who train their whole lives to do it. Jaune barely has half a year's worth of training."

Ozpin folds his hands. "That's hardly fair to Jaune's teammates."

The mention of Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren snaps Jaune out of his panic-induced shock. "Mom… Dad… I can't go home. My team—"

"Your school has an abundance of hunters," Mr. Arc interrupts. "Your team leader will be able to find a replacement without much trouble."

Jaune winces at Ozpin's correction that, "Jaune _is_ his team's leader," because that makes both his parents stare at him like he's some species of Grimm they've never seen before. Then those looks turn on Ozpin like the man is a complete idiot for arranging such a thing.

"Mr. and Mrs. Arc," Ozpin intones. "Perhaps you should see your son fight."

Both his parents jump on Ozpin for such a suggestion, and Jaune is secretly grateful that they won't let him try. Because he already knows that with everything on the line — his friends, his training, a future he cheated his way into — he'll fall apart. Like he always does. Unbidden, his mind starts to wander to his classmates, thinking who could take his place in JNPR and imagining every single person as a better candidate than himself. His teammates deserve a hunter who actually qualifies to stand beside them.

"Jaune," Goodwitch says abruptly and it brings Jaune back into this strange moment where both his parents are so very disappointed in him, and for reasons he can't even begin to understand, neither of his professors are. "Do you want to go back home?"

Jaune starts to shake his head a moment too late. His father is already talking.

"Whether he wants to stay or go is inconsequential," Mr. Arc says and rises from his seat. "A real hunter stands by the consequences of his actions. Jaune," his father's glare could be its own Semblance, "we're going home."

"I'm sorry, Jaune," his mother says, stroking his face and hair. "We don't want you to get hurt. You're our only son. You're my baby boy. What if something were to happen to you?"

Staring at his feet, Jaune can't bear to look any of them in the face. He feels like he's been thrown off a cliff again, except this time, there is no one who can save him from his father's stubbornness and his mother's compassion. If nothing convinced them of his potential in the sixteen years he spent under their roof, not even Ozpin and Goodwitch were going to change their minds now. If only Jaune inherited their conviction.

"Can I… Can I say goodbye to my friends?" he asks the floor.

His father grunts and collects the pieces of armor he'd displayed on Ozpin's desk. His mother kisses his forehead. Ozpin and Goodwitch ease back into their positions and Jaune swears there is disappointment in them now that wasn't there before.

* * *

Team RWBY takes the news poorly. Weiss asks him if it's an issue of money, with just the slightest hint of an offer in her voice. Yang grabs Ember Celica and cracks her knuckles and asks in complete seriousness who she needs to punch. ("Is it Cardin? I will punch him to the _moon_.") Blake hugs her arms and tells him she's sorry, glancing over her shoulder as if she's expecting her own parents to sweep in and take her away. Ruby throws herself on the floor and wraps her arms around Jaune's right leg as he tosses clothes into his suitcase.

"You can't go," Ruby begs into Jaune's knee. "We have our leadership trails in two days and we were going to get ice cream with everyone afterwards when we passed."

Jaune doesn't say a word. Doesn't trust his own stupid mouth not to get him in any more trouble. Goodwitch is watching him from the hallway with her arms crossed and head bowed. She explained everything to RWBY because Jaune was fully convinced he was deathstalker-venom hallucinating or having a lucid nightmare.

Nora and Ren arrive back at the dorm, panting from their run. They got Jaune's text while sparring in the gym. Ren stays at the door to catch his breath but Nora throws herself on the floor, latching onto Jaune's other leg with little-to-no-preamble.

"They can't take you away," Nora declares, and Ruby nodes fervently in agreement. "What's going to happen to Team JNPR? We'll be Team NPR! No! Worse! We'll be Team PRN! _Prune,_ Jaune! You can't let them do that us! We _need_ you!"

"They'll assign you a better hunter," Jaune says under her breath. It's the first and only thing he's said since returning.

"We don't _want_ a better hunter," Ren says from the door, and if Jaune didn't know any better, he'd say Ren was _angry_. "We want _you_."

Nora proceeds to have a full-on, honest-to-goodness panic attack while wrapped around Jaune's leg. Ren has to pull her off and calm her. Weiss tugs Ruby off and pulls her over to where the rest of her team are sitting on Nora's bed. The six of them watch Jaune pack and throw around desperate suggestions as he collects the last of his things, clamping his jaw down because his lip is already trembling and if he starts crying now he'll really never forgive himself.

No one's been able to get ahold of Pyrrha.

Jaune clicks his suitcase shut, leaving his Beacon uniform where it hangs in his closet, and Goodwitch murmurs, "Time to go."

"But Pyrrha isn't back," Weiss says.

Ruby frantically types on her scroll. "She's not responding to any of our messages."

"Her scroll's probably dead," Blake says solemnly.

Goodwitch shows them all the time on her own scroll. "I'm sorry, but Jaune's parents are waiting. The shuttle leaves in five minutes."

"I can't…" Jaune stops to swallow. His voice sounds like a stranger's. "I can't go without saying goodbye."

Under Goodwitch's Semblance, his suitcase floats to the door. "Tell her you're on your way to the airship docks."

Jaune nods numbly and looks up at the six faces staring at him. All of them pleading, begging him not to go, wanting him to fight against the dying of his dream.

"I'll be okay," he says, and he thinks he means it. "You'll all be okay too. Better, probably."

Ren reaches for his arm. "Jaune…"

"I'll call," he says quickly, because his voice catches on the tiny second word and then he's all but running out after Goodwitch.

* * *

His parents are waiting at the airship with Ozpin. They're talking — arguing by the look on his father's face — with Beacon's headmaster. Mr. Arc stops at the sight of Jaune, but not without throwing Ozpin a challenging stare over his shoulder. Goodwitch goes to load Jaune's bag but Ozpin puts a hand on his shoulder as he passes.

"No one can tell another person what they should or shouldn't want," he says solemnly, his voice almost lost as the airship engine turns on. "But in case what you want is to become a hunter..." Ozpin's eyes flash to sympathy as he presses a piece of paper into Jaune's hand. Jaune fists his hand around it and nods without looking at it. Ozpin makes a sound at the back of his throat and steps back as Glynda exits the airship and comes to his side.

"Jaune!" his father shouts. "Get onboard."

Jaune shoves Ozpin's paper in his pocket and looks back out at the school. He can see the light on in JNPR's dorm and the glow from the cafeteria as the sun starts to set in the distance. His feet won't move.

"Sweetie," his mother calls. "Please, we have to get going."

Without consulting his heart, Jaune's feet take him into the airship and sit him down beside his mother. He leans his head against the wall and shuts his eyes as the captain orders take-off.

The ship doesn't move. Over the roar of engines, the co-pilot shouts to the pilot.

"Can't takeoff with the access door open," he says. "And it's...not shutting. Something must be jammed or—"

Jaune feels it then. He doesn't know how or why but he knows why the door isn't shutting and he looks back out the window at an all too familiar ribbon of red hair sprinting towards the airship. He jumps out of his seat and bolts for the door.

He father grabs him, demanding, "Where do you think you're going?"

"Please," he begs, trying to see around his dad and out the door. "Let me say goodbye. I already agreed to go home. She's my partner, please let me say goodbye."

His mother calls his name soothingly but Jaune pulls out of his father's grip as his father warns that he has exactly one minute.

Jaune runs like he's never run in his life. The second he's off the airship, the black fuzz of Pyrrha's Semblance disappears and the door jerks closed, only to slowly reopen at the pilot's command. Jaune doesn't care. He doesn't care about anything except that Pyrrha's in running clothes so she must have been jogging and her scroll must have been dead and he was going to get the chance to say goodbye and…

Pyrrha does the strangest thing.

She grabs him by the arm and uses his momentum against him so that he's suddenly on the other side of her, closest to the school, and she's closest to the airship. He stumbles at the move, and now that he's close enough, he can't see a single wrinkle of sorrow on her face. Every line is determination.

"Jaune, go back to the dorm," she says firmly.

He stands there like a scarecrow as she doesn't wait for his answer and keeps running towards the airship. Belatedly, Jaune runs after her.

"Pyrrha," he calls, "what are you—?"

She holds him in place with her Semblance, locking his chest plate into that precise longitude and latitude of the earth. "I'm going to talk to you parents, go back to our room."

"You… You can't," Jaune struggles to say, fighting the pull of her Semblance. She's really making it hard to breathe for him, in more ways than one. "Pyrrha… Everyone's tried. Ozpin and—"

Pyrrha shakes her head, looking back at the airship. "They haven't talked to me," she says and turns back to march into the ship.

"Pyrrha!" Jaune unhooks his chestplate and wiggles out of it quick enough to reach her before she boards. "Look, it's no use. I just… I wanted to say goodbye."

She shakes her head again, like she doesn't believe him. "No. You're staying."

Jaune looks into her eyes, into a conviction he wishes he only had a fraction of, and that somehow makes him sadder. "I'm sorry," he murmurs.

With another head shake, she turns to board the airship and Jaune has to grab her by the wrist to stop her.

"You're staying," she repeats, but it's shakier now. "You're staying because you're my partner. I'm Pyrrha Nikos, and you're my _partner_ , and they're going to listen to me."

The way she says her name, like it means something, like it's this title to throw around, for a second makes Jaune think she's been replaced by a clone. But then she turns to face him again and there are tears in her eyes and he realizes, with a terrible sinking feeling, that she'd throw around her fame and despised celebrity if she thought it would mean something to his parents. If she thought it would let him stay. Jaune doesn't know what to say.

"It just… It wasn't meant to be, Pyr," he says, the words coming out, like everything else, on autopilot. He realizes he's still holding her by the wrist and he pulls her gently further away from the airship. "They'll… They'll get you a better partner. Someone you won't have to save out of trees or train with until sunrise just so he's good enough for swordplay 101."

His father calls for him from the airship and Jaune walks around so now he's closes to the ship, in case Pyrrha keeps insisting.

"We can train more," she says, voice solidifying. "I can train with you more. You're already so much better, they'll see—"

"There's nothing you could have done," Jaune says. "They found out about the transcripts. They found out I stole Crocea Mors. They… A real hunter stands by the consequences of his actions," he repeats sadly.

Pyrrha just stares at him. He knows she's running every scenario through her mind, and the thought occurs to him that she's going to make a great leader for what's left of their little family.

He does something stupid and yanks Pyrrha into a hug. It's awkward, and he's clutching her to his chest with enough strength that it probably hurt. Pyrrha wasn't a hugger, and anytime one of them _did_ hug her, the metal in the room did a weird shake. It was like she forgot hugging was a skill-set she had. Now, it only takes her a moment to wrap her arms around Jaune and hug back hard enough to hurt _him_.

"I'm going to send you training videos," she half-sobs into his shoulder. "Every day. You _do not_ stop training, not for the end of the world, okay?"

"Okay," he answers, nodding into her hair and letting it hide the tears that are falling down his face.

"And you visit," she declares, her nails digging into his back through the fabric of the hoodie. "And you text me. And Ren and Nora. And you… Don't forget how much I—"

" _Jaune!"_ his father shouts, appearing in the door to the airship. "We are _leaving!_ "

He pulls back from Pyrrha and hurriedly wipes his eyes. "I'll be okay. We'll… You'll be okay too. Take care, yeah?"

Pyrrha struggles with something in her throat but then Glynda steps up and hands Jaune back his chest plate. She pulls Pyrrha back from the airship to stand beside her and Ozpin.

"Goodbye," he says, and gets back onboard. The airship takes off this time without any interference. And by the time Jaune sits back down beside his mother, it's already heading in the direction of his home, away from the only thing he'd ever tried to fight for.

* * *

 **Authors Note:** I feel like Flynn Rider in the opening of Tangled. "This is the story of how Jaune Arc got kicked out of Beacon and had all his hopes and dreams crushed. But don't worry! This is actually a really fun and fluffy story! I promise!" After all, when you hit rock bottom, there's only one way to go.

Originally written for the RWBY Big Bang on Tumblr, but I wasn't going to finish it for the deadline so I decided to post it as its own separate thing. Thanks to Maddie and Wabbit for their comments, corrections, and motivation. Originally posted on AO3 on 3/25/17


	2. Chapter 2

His father takes his armor and Crocea Mors from him on the airship, along with his scroll, as part of the colossal grounding he is starting the moment he steps foot back in his house. His mother tries to soothe him the whole trip as his father paces, muttering a whole bunch of things about the incompetence of Beacon coupled with a lot of, "What were you _thinking?"_

Jaune is in such a state by the time they reach the Arc Household, that not one of his four sisters still living at home makes a comment when he sweeps past them all to lock himself in his bedroom. Rawaya makes an attempt to knock on his door, gently, to tell him Gia made stew if he wanted some. When Jaune doesn't answer, she leaves without pressing. Flava comes a little later to ask what the frick did he do because mom and dad have been shouting at each other in dad's study since they got back. Jaune shoves a pillow over his head until Flava gets the hint and leaves him too. Finally, Amarilla comes knocking and doesn't stop knocking.

"Leave me alone, Ama," he calls, hoping his voice doesn't sound as pathetic and tearful as it does to his own ears.

"That is a thing I would love to do if I didn't also live here," she says. She only sounds the regular amount of annoyed, so Jaune goes to unlock the door for her.

Amarilla shuffles into the room, dumping her oversized purse at the foot of the second bed across from Jaune's. As Jaune crawls back into his bed and under his sheets, still in all his clothes, Amarilla sits in their shared reading chair and watches her only brother's mound of sheets rise and fall.

"I didn't tell them," she says awkwardly. "In case that was something you were wondering. There's no way I could've without them figuring out I helped. And Flava obviously didn't know or she'd have been the first to say she told us so." She sits back in the chair, puffing a long strand of plaited blonde hair from her face. "Gia would be required to know coding which, unless she's been hiding that skill from us, she wouldn't—"

"Ama," Jaune mumbles miserably. "I really, _really_ don't want to do this right now."

His sister doesn't say anything for a long moment, then asks, "Was it nice, at least? While it lasted?"

Jaune doesn't answer, only buries himself further in his blankets and wonders how much of a coward his friends must think he is for not fighting the good fight, even if it was rigged against him from the start.

"...I'm gonna put my headphones on, okay?" Amarilla says. "Throw something at me if you want to talk."

* * *

Jaune stays in bed for the following week straight. Mrs. Arc keeps a tight orbit around Jaune in that time, checking on him multiple times a day, bringing him food regularly, and sitting on his bed with him. She pets his hair and tells him it's alright to be sad. It's alright and this was for the best. Mr. Arc uses Jaune's lethargy as proof of why Beacon was too much for his son. He calls up the principal of the local school and explains the situation, pulling some professional hunter's clout to ensure Jaune can start the new semester in a few days. Amarilla lies for him and tells their parents and Flava, who's nosey, that Jaune's been reading and eating and showering, all the while keeping a half-joking checklist at her bedside table of all the favors Jaune is going to owe her as soon as he's better. Gia shows she cares by pretending Jaune doesn't exist. Rawaya picks up his _X-Ray and Vav_ comic back issues from their local shop and slips the pile under his and Amarilla's door without a word.

On day nine of Jaune remaining balled up in bed, commiserating on his failure and kicking himself for all the things he should have done to establish and fight for his place at Beacon, Amarilla gets home late from her after-school pre-nursing courses. She leaves their bedroom door open, yanks the covers off of Jaune, and fastball pitches his jeans at his face.

"Wow, Ama, you're such a good sister," she says in a poor imitation of Jaune. She throws his hoodie at him too and beams each shoe individually at his legs. "Thanks _so_ much for talking mom into letting me out of the house, Ama."

Jaune lifts his head blearily. "What?"

"I convinced Flava the lack of hot water was all your sad baths," Amarilla says, scrounging through Jaune's set of drawers for his socks and clean underwear, which she throws at him hastily. "So she helped me convince mom that a night on the town would do you some good before you start classes again. Dad's at a town hall meeting. As long as we don't accidentally run into him downtown, we are _golden._ "

With languid motions, Jaune takes his Pumpkin Pete hoodie and drapes it over the shoulders of his Pumpkin Pete onesie. "I don't feel like going out."

"Too bad," Amarilla says, hands on her hips. "Get dressed or I'm calling Rawa over and we're going to make you wear whatever we want."

Jaune shakes his head and moves the hoodie to block his face from the light. He hears Amarilla sigh. Then there's a dip in the mattress at his side.

"Okay, look, I know… I know I'm supposed to be the head when you're the heart, and vice versa, but you're freaking me out a little, okay?" She puts a hand on Jaune's shoulder. "This was supposed to be an adventure, right? When we tampered with the transcripts and smuggled the stuff out of dad's study, it was just to see what it would be like. We knew mom and dad were going to figure it out eventually. Right? Jaune?"

He pulls the hoodie away from his face and stares up at his sister. "Yeah."

"It was always supposed to be a short-term thing," Amarilla agrees, even though she knows good and well that she never saw her brother as happy as when they snuck up to the hayloft in the barn to open up his Beacon acceptance message.

"Yeah," Jaune says again, staring at the far wall covered in his sister's posters of swimsuit models and human anatomy charts.

Amarilla hesitates, then awkwardly pats her brother's shoulder. "I'm glad you're home," she admits. Then, grabbing his pillow from under his head, she chucks it across the room. "And unless you want me to _keep_ getting sentimental," she says a little more firmly, "then get dressed. I told Flava to be ready in twenty minutes."

* * *

Jaune stands in front of the weaponsmith in downtown, looking longingly through the window at the smith hammering out the flat of a blade the size of Yasuhashi's broadsword. He probably looks utterly pathetic, despite Amarilla's attempts to style his hair in a way that doesn't immediately look like he hasn't washed it in a week.

"He's been staring into that shop for ten whole minutes," Flava mutters to Amarilla under her breath.

"Stand a little closer, Flav. The ice from your soul is refreshing in this heat."

Flava sends Amarilla a glare, then grudgingly checks her watch again. "I told my friends to meet me at the drive-in at quarter past." Her icy look jumps up to Amarilla, then touches on the back of her brother's slumped figure a little more sympathetically. "I'm going to go ahead to meet them. Just...make sure he doesn't walk into traffic or something."

Amarilla fake-shivers and Flava flips her off as she departs. Amarilla comes up and takes Jaune by the arm.

"C'mon. I know just the thing to help."

With little effort, his sister pulls him away from the weaponsmith. They walk a couple blocks, past a few other smiths and restaurants, to a modest sized bar with fairy lights zig-zagging across the ceiling. Jaune frowns at the establishment.

"I'm not _this_ depressed," he mumbles. Amarilla ignores him.

They find two seats in the crowded bar and Amarilla orders them beers. She proudly flashes her ID and Jaune's to the bartender who checks that they are indeed seventeen before handing them their drinks. Jaune stares into his mug of beer as Amarilla looks at him expectantly. He sighs and takes a swig. It doesn't taste as terrible as he thought it might. Amarilla orders them pretzel sticks which he enjoys significantly more.

Halfway through their second beers, Jaune has to admit he feels marginally better, though he doesn't know if it's the pretzels or the alcohol. Amarilla suddenly sits up, spotting a muscular girl across the bar with blue hair, and elbows Jaune excitedly. Jaune looks the girl over, and his first and only clear thought is that Pyrrha could probably take her easily in a fight. He gives his sister a weak thumbs up. Amarilla rolls her eyes and grabs her purse, promising to be right back. She crosses the bar towards the girl as Jaune finishes his beer, feeling fuzzy around the edges of his sadness.

"Jaune Arc?" he hears someone say. "I'll be damned."

He turns to the sound of his name and freezes at the sight of the petite girl with red-brown hair leaning up against the bar at his side, looking as surprised to see him as he is to see her. "Carnelia?"

She smiles at him carefully. "Didn't expect to see you around here."

Jaune stares at her, dumbstruck. He'd had a crush on Carnelia since she moved into town when they were nine. He wrote her poetry and daydreamed about her in class and he would have bet lien to lychee that she had no idea he even existed. Except here she was, and she knew his first _and_ last name.

He goes on far too long without answering, not helped by the two beers in his system, but Carnelia only eyes the seat Amarilla vacated and takes it without asking him. "I heard you got into Beacon Academy. Thought you'd skipped town on all us locals."

Blinking rapidly and suddenly feeling too hot in his hoodie, Jaune tries to smile at her. "Oh, well, yeah. That happened. I'm...I'm back now."

"Hunting didn't suit you?"

"No. Um, I had to leave. Sort of."

"Oh." Carnelia's eyes glide to somewhere by the door and Jaune looks over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of a group of Carnelia's friends in a booth whispering to each other. Before Jaune can figure out the next thing to say, Carnelia returns her attention to him. "So how have you been? Other than expelled." Her eyes slowly draw down his body, appraising. "You look...good."

Jaune thinks he might be having a stroke. Drinking alcohol can do that, right? Could you travel between dimensions if you had too much alcohol?

"Uh. Um, you. You too," Jaune stammers.

Carnelia smiles like she knows it and tilts her head a little. "My friends and I are heading to a party after this. Maybe you could come?"

Jaune scans the bar and finds his sister laughing with the blue-haired girl she'd gone to speak with. "I have to check with Ama," he blurts.

Carnelia's face loses some of its coyness at the mention of Amarilla. "Oh," she says. "Well, if she _must,_ she can come too. It's a free—"

"Arc!"

Jaune jumps from his seat and even Carnelia gives a start. They turn to find another one of Jaune's former classmates making a beeline for them from the door. Jaune stumbles a little against the bar until he finds his feet.

"Ashton!" Jaune calls nervously, as the classmate twice Jaune's size walks over. "Hey, long time...long time no see, man."

"We were just talking, Ash," Carnelia says placatingly. "I was inviting him to your party after this."

Ashton looks Jaune over like a territorial Ursa might. Jaune can smell the alcohol coming off the other guy and wishes nervous laughter wasn't his go-to reaction to danger because it seems to be upsetting Ashton.

"What are you doing here? Why are you talking to _her?_ " he demands, putting an arm possessively over Carnelia. "Did your boyfriend ditch you for the night?"

Jaune opens his mouth to hesitantly remind the other boy that despite ten years of Ashton trying to get Jaune to admit it through brute force, Jaune isn't _actually_ gay, but Amarilla appears at Jaune's side as if by cosmic irony.

"Sorry, Ashton," she says briskly, helping Jaune straighten up and use his legs properly. "I think you're in the wrong bar. The 10 and under IQ bar is down the street."

Ashton's glare hones in on the other Arc. He sneers and his hand on Carnelia's shoulder balls into a fist.

Suddenly, Jaune has a very good idea what is going to come out of Ashton's mouth, so he hurriedly digs out lien to pay off his and Amarilla's tab and make a quick exit. "Well, it was great catching up and all. I hope you two live happily heterosexually ever after. Good night!" he blurts, grabbing Amarilla by the arm like she's the one who needed his support and not the other way around.

Jaune feels the weight of the hand gripping his shoulder before he realizes he's not moving forward anymore. Ashton spins him around, making him even more dizzy, and Jaune sees that wounded-pride anger he recognizes from Cardin Winchester. Jaune's drunken reflex is to immediately put as much aura as possible between himself and Ashton's fist as it comes down on his face.

Ashton's knuckles collide with Jaune's nose, and a blinding gold light engulfs the bar.

It takes a moment for Jaune's vision to clear. He's standing exactly where he was, but Ashton is sprawled in a heap against the wall on the complete opposite end of the room. Other than the droning of the TV, the whole bar has gone silent. Patrons are gaping at Jaune as the glow from his aura fades. Carnelia and Amarilla are staring. Jaune thinks he might still be having a stroke.

Ashton scrambles to his feet, looking disoriented but even angrier than before. His fury focuses on Jaune and he grabs an empty beer bottle from the bar and rushes Jaune with a bellow.

With his lag from drinking, Jaune has two seconds to react. In his head, Ren's voice says, _Reason with him._ Nora's voice says, _Break his legs!_

But with a split second left, he listens to Pyrrha's voice that says, _He's angry, you're not, you have all the power over his momentum._

Muscle memory kicks in and Jaune channels aura to his arms to brace and maneuver, and when Ashton comes down with the swing, Jaune sees Cardin with his mace and —

Ashton goes over Jaune's shoulder. Smashes through the front window of the bar. And skids to a stop in the middle of the street under a shower of glass.

It takes Jaune a good ten seconds to realize why, exactly, it was so easy to throw a drunken bully with no hunter training when he was pretty sure Cardin Winchester would have still creamed him. It takes another few seconds for Jaune to realize he might be in trouble. Then Amarilla is yanking him by the hood of his hoodie and hissing, _"Run."_

He and Amarilla practically trip over each other to sprint out the door and as far down the street as they can. Jaune turns a corner just at the edge of town to catch his breath and wait for the world to stop spinning. Amarilla eventually catches up.

"That was…" she pants, doubled over against the wall. "Jaune… That was… _Amazing!"_ she finishes, looking up to beam at him. "That thing you did! With the...light show! And Carnelia's _face!_ She—"

"I think I'm gonna vomit," Jaune interrupts suddenly, clutching at his stomach.

Amarilla swears and grabs Jaune to yank him to a nearby tree so he can rid himself of the pretzels and beer and, you know, all that pesky adrenaline.

* * *

 **Authors Note:** For those of you who have followed this story on AO3, _yes_ I will be posting until we catch up with the AO3 chapters, _and then there will be new chapters_. I needed a little extra motivation to get back to writing this story, so every review helps :)

Jaune is "yellow" in French, so it thought it would be neat if that was the common thread with all his sisters. I don't know if that's been done before but I felt really clever when I thought of it. You now know how to say "yellow" in Spanish (amarillo), Italian (giallo), Latin (flavo), and Hausa (rawaya).

Cover Image Courtesy of **mrk50** on tumblr!


	3. Chapter 3

Jaune's first weeks of classes are brutal. He's grossly behind in every single course that isn't History of Remnant, where he is only _marginally_ behind. Honestly, he deserved an A+ for just staying awake through Oobleck's classes. Still, Jaune has to learn all the math and science stuff that Beacon thought wasn't very essential to Grimm fighting. He can't even study in the library because his parents want him back home the very moment after the last bell rings. But that's not the worst of it.

He hears his own name float around the hallways on a near daily basis. People talk about him behind his back and in the cafeteria any time they think he's just out of earshot. News of his fight with Ashton makes rounds faster than Ruby at her top speed. Everyone seems to know that he was "kicked out of Beacon", according to Carnelia's network of gossipers, and most put two and two together regarding their theories as to why. All of Jaune's old friends tell him, in no uncertain terms, that he's too cool for them now. They can't be seen playing card games and Compost King with a _jock_ like him. The professors warn ominously that they'll be keeping an eye on his performance in and out of the classroom. And not a day goes by that a total stranger doesn't sidle up to Jaune and try to befriend him, asking him about being a hunter and what it was like to slay a Grimm and gosh, it must be so cool, did he know such and such a hunter, could Jaune introduce them, would Jaune like to hang out with them?

"You are essentially a rock star," Rawaya says to him as they sit in the cafeteria. She and Amarilla are the only two people Jaune sits with on a regular basis. "Did someone really ask if you were friends with Team SSSN?"

Jaune bows his head over his brown-bagged sandwich and apple, with a loving note from his mom scribbled in perfect calligraphy. "I spoke to Sun Wukong maybe twice," he mumbles, chewing his sandwich at a snail's pace.

"Oh," Rawaya says, blushing something terrible. "But… Not Neptune Vasilias right?" She wrings her hands. "I have his poster in my closet from that magazine, you don't think you could…"

Amarilla puts down her pudding cup and covers Jaune's ears with both her hands. "Rawa, you are _not_ helping our baby brother through his traumatic thing."

"Of course. My apologies," Rawaya says, shaking her head to clear her previous thoughts. Amarilla releases Jaune's head. Rawaya continues to Jaune, trying to be helpful. "At least no one has realized who your partner was."

Amarilla's hands quickly clap back around Jaune's ears.

"Ama, _ow_."

"We vowed never again," Amarilla whispers fiercely. " _Especially_ after the cereal aisle thing."

"I can hear you _both_ ," Jaune says irately. But there's a lump in his throat. "Rawa, it's alright. It's annoying, but I'm figuring it out. I know none of you mean any harm by it."

"Of course." Rawaya flicks Jaune's arm with a smile. "We are Arcs. We are made of stronger stuff than the rest of them."

After school, Amarilla stays for her nursing classes and Rawaya heads to the school's news office. Jaune shoulders his bag of books and waves his sisters goodbye to head home. He feels like he hasn't had a moment to take a breath. He's still wrapping his head around the concept of a school where not everyone's focus is slaying monsters and getting better at slaying monsters.

On his walk home, Jaune spots a few of Carnelia's friends stopped in the middle of the road exchanging numbers. Jaune considers his options before they spot him and ducks into the small stretch of woods between the school and his house that flanks each side of the road. It'll be a slightly longer trip, but at least he won't have to deal with school drama _outside_ of school. Alas, the girls spot him and follow him anyway, calling after him until Jaune grudgingly comes to a stop.

"Jaune!" the shorter of the two girls trills. Jaune thinks her name is Crystal. "We didn't see you at Carnelia's pub crawl yesterday."

Jaune begins to come up with some excuse regarding his studies but stops when he hears something in the trees. He turns, instincts on edge though there's nothing to see. Crystal thinks he's avoiding the question. Jaune shushes her rather harshly, trying to hear.

"Really, Jaune," Crystal's friend says, offended. "If you didn't want to come—"

An Ursa bursts forth from the trees. Crystal and her friend scream and Jaune jumps in front of them as the Ursa's claw comes down. His aura takes the brunt of it, but it sends him flying. Jaune rolls like Pyrrha taught him (it's sloppy, she'd make a comment on his form) and quickly gets back to his feet. Crystal and her friend are frozen in terror as the Ursa turns back to them.

"Hey!" Jaune shouts at it. "Hey, over here!" He swings his backpack off and hurls it with all his strength at the Grimm. The backpack explodes against it's white mask in textbooks and papers and pens. The Grimm's head swivels to him and Jaune starts to run with Professor Port's voice droning in his head. _Deeper into the forest, away from populated areas, always away from civilians who don't know what you know about fear._

He can hear it tearing after him, roaring its rage. His brain scrambles as he runs to think of what to do. He has no weapons, no way of checking what level is aura is at. It's a small Ursa, smaller than the size he was used to handling in Forever Fall, but without armor or backup, it might as well be an Ursa Major.

He's thinking so hard he almost misses the ravine he's running towards. Jaune turns to avoid it, but his feet skid on the underbrush. He trips and tumbles into the ravine, screaming. Painfully, he lands in the shallow creek at the bottom. When the shock passes, he hears the Grimm following and scrambles against the rocks and current to get back on his feet. The Ursa is sliding down the ravine's steep edge to reach him and Jaune frantically scans in both directions for an escape route. He spots a tree that's partially fallen into the ravine, offering a ramp out. He sprints to it, tripping on smooth pebbles and mud and splashing ankle-deep water everywhere. By the time the Ursa reaches the waterline, Jaune is scrabbling up the side of the rotten tree as fast as he can. The Grimm charges him and Jaune has to jump the last few feet out of the ravine when the Ursa slashes the trunk and shatters it. Wheezing from effort, he pulls himself up and lays on his back to catch his breath.

The Ursa roars in anger below him. Jaune can hear it pacing, trying to scale up the side. Still panting, Jaune's head lolls to the side. He notices a small boulder nearby. With unsteady movements, Jaune rises and stumbles over to the thing, deciding that while he may not have weapons, sometimes thumbs and determination are good enough. Pushing with all the aura he has left, Jaune shoves the rock a few inches at a time to the edge of the ravine. In one final burst of strength, he shoulders it over the edge. There's a crunch below and the Ursa goes silent. By the time the dark Grimm matter dissipates, Jaune is already staggering back into the woods, trying to remember where he left his backpack.

He finds it by following Crystal's voice. She and her friend are standing where Jaune left them, babbling frantically to five or six other students who seemed to have been heading home down the same road. At the sight of him, they run over.

"Jaune! Oh my— Are you _okay?!"_

"They said it was an Ursa! Is it dead? Did you—"

"You look like _shit,_ man!"

Jaune nods wearily at them all and reaches down to pick up his books and scattered papers.

"You are _soaked_ and your hands are bleeding," Crystal points out desperately. "You should go to a medic!"

"I'm just gonna… Go home and take a nap," Jaune tells them, grabbing the last of his pens and shoving them in his bag. "See you in History tomorrow," he mumbles and almost crumples under just the weight of his bookbag.

The group makes a mixed noise of confusion and concern but Jaune doesn't turn back around. He stumbles the rest of the way home with no more distractions of the Grimm or scholarly variety. It's only when he opens his front door and finds himself face-to-face with Gia in date clothes that he figures his luck lasted too long.

Gia takes one good look at him, then steps aside to let him enter the house. "I want to know nothing."

Jaune drags himself past her with a grateful thumbs up. He falls asleep in the shower.

* * *

A week later, Jaune's status at school has shifted. Everyone in his grade and in the grades above him suddenly knows his name and wants him to know theirs. Almost overnight, he goes from Jaune "expelled from Beacon, thinks he's better than the rest of us" Arc, to Jaune " _knows_ he's better than us, and with good reason, do not fuck with Jaune Arc" Arc. Jaune becomes aware of this because someone actually relays that information to Amarilla in so many words. She laughed for a good two minutes when she passed it onto him. Jaune makes her and Rawaya swear not to tell their parents about the Ursa thing, since their mother might have a heart attack thinking he was so close to danger. Their father already had enough on his plate with his own town council and hunting duties; he didn't need to worry about grounding Jaune any further.

Jaune starts eating his lunches in janitor's closets or in the corner of the cafeteria, between his unofficial sibling bodyguards. He can't make it from one class to the next without someone wanting to talk to him, and he finds the silver lining in his grounding, as it gives him an excuse to duck out on everyone's after school invitations. He can't leave school fast enough at the end of the day, even if it's just to go home and crawl back into bed for some peace and quiet.

The Arcs are all sitting down to dinner at the end of the week, as they all make an effort to do when Mr. Arc is out of the house on hunting assignments. Flava's scroll keeps ringing at the table. Even when she silences it, the buzz against the wooden table makes everyone look up whenever it goes off.

" _Who_ is calling you so incessantly?" Mrs. Arc asks, earnestly intrigued.

Flava scowls at the number on the scroll before cancelling another call. "Probably a telemarketer."

"Tell them to stop," Gia suggests simply.

The scroll buzzes again and Flava outright shuts it off with a grunt of annoyance. "And let them know it's a valid number? No thanks. They've been calling since yesterday. I am _not_ going to break now."

"I wish I had that kind of determination to sell you something," Rawaya says absently. She swallows a mouse's bite of bread.

"Yes, well." Flava takes a drink of her red wine. "It _must_ be a telemarketer. I don't know anyone with a Mistrali number."

Jaune chokes a little on his glass of water. His mother thumps him gently on the back until he can breath fine again. Jaune swallows properly as a strange sort of hope wells inside him.

"You don't have any...ex's from Mistral, right?" he asks carefully, trying to keep his expression as neutral as possible.

Amarilla barks a laugh. "That would require her to actually date."

Jaune chuckles awkwardly as Flava and Amarilla bicker. Gia's instinct is to shove what's left of her dish in the fridge so she can leave the table, and Rawaya puts her headphones in despite Mrs. Arc's insistence that dinner is socializing time. Jaune scarfs down the rest of his meal and then goes to watch TV in the living room until Flava finishes and heads to her room.

He knocks on her door. "Flav, I need to borrow your scroll."

Flava's door opens, and she raises a knowing brow at him. "You're grounded."

"I know, but it's really _really_ important. I'll only be two minutes."

"You're grounded," she repeats mechanically, as if he's forgotten. "At least until the Vytal Festival. If dad has his way, until you're _fifty_."

Jaune pushes his way into the room and shuts the door behind him. "I will do _anything._ I'll take over your chores list for the week. The month!"

"Do me one better, baby brother," she says. Her eyes get serious. "I've got interviews lined up from now until the end of the year. If mom or dad find out I helped you break grounding, guess who's _also going to get grounded."_

"Tell me what you want."

"To not get grounded."

" _Flava."_

She groans. "Stop using all the hot water with your sad baths," she acquiesces. "Actually, on that note, _stop being sad._ It's depressing the rest of us. And do my chores for the month. _And_ help me convince mom to let me go to Vale for an interview for the CCTS."

"Done," Jaune says immediately.

Flava expected more resistance, but she sighs and sticks to her word, holding the scroll away from Jaune for a moment before she hands it to him. " _Two minutes."_

Jaune snatches it from her and powers it back on. There's a list of missed calls, all from the Mistrali number, but they stopped roughly an hour ago. Jaune hits redial on one of them and holds his breath.

The call connects. He hears, "Hello?"

And Jaune can't help the laugh that escapes him. It's relief and joy and it tumbles out from somewhere deep inside him. "Hey, Pyrrha."

Her voice goes from cautiously formal to ecstatic in a moment. "Jaune!" She laughs too, all bright and sparkling. "Jaune, thank goodness! I thought something happened! You haven't answered anyone's texts in weeks!"

"I'm grounded," he says, sitting down on his sister's bed. "My parents took my scroll. How did you get my sister's number?"

Jaune hears papers shuffling. "Weiss had some files sent to her from the SDC and she caught sight of your sister's application for a position in the company. Please tell her I'm sorry for all the calls!"

He laughs again and scrubs a hand across his face, not caring what an idiot he must sound like. "Wow, have I missed the sound of your voice."

"Turn on your video," Pyrrha says before shouting away from the microphone, "Nora! Ren! I got through to Jaune!"

Jaune holds the scroll away from him and switches to the video function. As the video connects, he pats down his hair and double checks that he has nothing in his teeth. A second later, he's greeted with the sight of Pyrrha beaming up at him through his scroll. Her hair's down and she's in her night clothes without a fleck of makeup. Jaune didn't even consider the time difference between Beacon and his town.

She opens her mouth to say something but the camera view is immediately jostled and fully consumed by Nora's face.

"JAUNE!" she shouts. He swears he can hear it out his window all the way from Beacon. "You're okay! Your noodly face is all in one piece!"

He wants to tell her he just went home, he didn't fight a swarm of Grimm or jump out an airship, but he fears that might get her to stop grinning. He missed that first thing in the morning. So instead he smiles so wide his face hurts and says, "Yeah."

"School's been _crazy_ since you left!" Nora declares, shaking the camera. Jaune can hear Pyrrha struggling somewhere out of the camera's view, mumbling, "Please give it back." Nora does no such thing, fending off Pyrrha with one hand while addressing the scroll and Jaune with the other. "We had this _epic_ food fight at the start of the semester and Glynda almost gave us detention _forever._ But I guess she didn't want to make us look bad in front of all the new kids from Mistral and Vacuo and Atlas so we only got a little bit of detention. Which we had to share with Team RWBY which was no detention at all because we _hey!_ "

Jaune suddenly has a view of the ceiling as Nora whines off camera, "I wasn't finished!"

The camera view dips and then Jaune's looking down the length of Ren's arm to his face, from where Ren is steadily holding the scroll over his head and out of Nora's reach. "Good evening, Jaune."

"Ren! Man, am I glad to see you," Jaune says sincerely.

Ren gives him one of his little smiles. "And I, you. How is home?"

"Home is…" Jaune falters, then decides he's not going to ruin the moment. "Great! Home is great. How's, uh, how are all the girls?"

Ren sighs. Jaune can see Nora climbing up Ren's side like a monkey to reach the scroll and can hear Pyrrha asking Ren to please be careful with her scroll. "Everyone is well," he says. "RWBY has been keeping busy tracking criminal masterminds. We're all passing our classes."

"That's awesome! That's...wait, criminal masterminds?"

There's a gasp from off-camera, followed by, "Is that Jaune?!" The camera screen is subsequently obscured by red rose petals and then he's looking at Yang's Achieve Men poster in the background and Ruby's face grinning at him from arm's length.

"Jaune! Didya miss me?" she asks excitedly.

"Rubes! Hey, of course! How are you? Did you pass the leadership trials?"

She beams. "With all the highest points." The camera bounces with her excitement. "Did Ren tell you about all the new students at Beacon now and all their _super cool_ weapons? Sun's friend Neptune has an electric trident, can you believe that?!"

Jaune makes a note to pass that on to Rawaya. He raises a brow. "Uh, Ren said something about you guys hunting criminals?"

"Roman Torchwick," Ruby clarifies with a serious nod. "He's been working with the White Fang and—"

Weiss pushes Ruby out of frame to glare through the screen. "Jaune, you _cannot_ tell anyone how I got your sister's number. If my dad finds out I got hold of SDC files, I am in _huge_ trouble."

"Hey, Weiss," Jaune says nervously, his heart fluttering at the sight of her. "Anything you say, snow angel. W-What have you been up to?"

Weiss rolls her eyes, looking regretful that she got on camera to address him, but she's startled by Yang suddenly appearing on screen.

"She's been kicking terrorist butt!" Yang interjects, pushing in to share the frame with Weiss. In the background of the swivelled camera angle, Jaune can see Ren and Nora coming in the door to RWBY's dorm.

"Kicking _major_ butt!" Ruby agrees, shoving in and squishing Weiss in the frame between herself and Yang. Weiss sighs and ducks out from between the sisters.

"I told him about the food fight!" Nora calls from off screen, followed by Ren informing them all that it was past lights out and they were all being very loud.

"Did you hear about the mech fight?" Yang asks him, smirking as she takes the scroll fully. "That was _almost_ just as cool. You totally should've been there."

"Oh!" Ruby interrupts, snatching the scroll back. "Blake wants to say hi too! Say hi, Blake!"

The camera turns to a very sleep deprived Blake, sitting in bed with a book and narrowing her eyes at the scroll being shoved in her face. "Hello, Jaune," she says blearily.

"Hey!" Jaune squints, worried. "Are you sick?"

"I'm fine," she says curtly, and then Jaune is back to looking at Ruby's face.

"When are you coming back?" Ruby asks with a smile.

Jaune winces. "Oh. Um, I haven't...figured that out yet."

"You can't keep a good hunter down, Rubes," Yang says from off camera.

"Right," Jaune agrees, feeling that sinking sensation in his stomach swallow his happiness. "Well, first I have to serve my grounding. Then I guess I can...visit."

Ruby starts to frown. "But...when are you coming back to _school?"_

The truth wriggles around in his throat, and he almost says it, he almost says, _never._ But he pastes a smile back on his face and says, "Soon as I can."

In an instant, Ruby's excitement is back. Nora pushes into frame. "We've _got_ to tell you about the paladin. And crazy umbrella girl!"

"Oh! Let me tell that part," Yang says and then she's pulling the scroll from Ruby and Nora so all Jaune can see is blonde hair.

It devolves into playful bickering as the three girls start passing the scroll and talking over each other. Jaune stares into the image in his hands, feeling his chest hurt with how much he misses them. Suddenly, the screen goes to static.

"Hello? Guys?" Jaune holds the scroll up in a couple directions to try and see if he lost reception. But a few seconds later, the static clears on the image of Pyrrha as the scroll snaps into her hand with her Semblance. By the bright overhead lights, it looks like she's in one of the bathrooms on the Freshmen floor, and that's confirmed as she quickly pushes against the door and locks it.

" _You can't hog him all to yourself, Nikos!"_ Yang's voice shouts from somewhere in the hallway.

"I'm sorry!" Pyrrha calls. She slides down to sit against the door and heaves a sigh. She smiles at Jaune. "Sorry, I was worried they'd drop my scroll."

"They would," Jaune agrees, smiling back goofily.

"Truthfully though," she says, brushing some wild strands of hair from her face, "how have you been?"

Jaune doesn't want to lie to her, but he doesn't think he can bear to strip her of her smile. He dodges the question. "Oh, I'm Mr. Popularity at school now. Even being a terrible ex-hunter makes you a super star around here. They're asking for my autograph in the hallways. I have no idea how you do it."

Pyrrha blushes, but her smile is encouraging. "You were never a terrible hunter," she corrects gently. "How is your training going? Have you been getting my videos?"

"Haven't had my scroll," Jaune reminds her. "But...I've been going through our basic starter routines," he lies. "Really...getting those polished."

"Wonderful!" Pyrrha beams. "That's always the best way to build a foundation."

The guilt gnaws at him for lying, but he tells himself it's worth it to see her happy. It's worth it to see them all living perfectly exciting lives without him. It's worth it to hear they think of him and want him to come back.

"Jaune? Is something wrong," Pyrrha asks, looking worried.

"No," he insists, rubbing away something in the corner of his eye. He swallows hard. "No, nothing's wrong. I wish I didn't miss swordfighting and you beating me into the ground on a regular basis, but I do."

"You were getting better."

"You were letting me _win_ more. That's different."

Her flush of color betrays her. "I didn't— I did _not_ let you win."

Jaune finds his smile again as she stammers. "It's okay, Pyr. I probably needed it. You were a great teacher."

"You would've done the same for me," she insists, still pink in the face.

"Yeah. In a different world," Jaune says sadly.

Pyrrha searches his face and bites her lip. She startles when someone knocks on the door behind her. She turns back to Jaune. "I have to go. Can I reach you at this number?"

Jaune shakes his head. "I'll call _you_. On any scroll I can get my hands on. Promise. I have your number now."

Her lips quirk up. "Jaune, you've had my number since the start of the year."

"On my scroll, yeah. I didn't actually _memorize_ it," he says. She laughs, and Jaune does too. "I'll call back as soon as I can."

Pyrrha's smile turns sad around the edges. "You better," she whispers.

"Tell the others I wish them well, okay?"

Pyrrha nods. There's another knock on the door, but Pyrrha doesn't make an immediate motion to stand. She stays staring at him through the scroll and Jaune stares back, through the many miles between them.

"Goodnight, Jaune," she says fondly.

"Goodnight, Pyrrha."

He disconnects first because he needs to do it before he convinces himself he can talk with her until the sun comes up. The screen goes black and Jaune stares at his feet through the empty glass between the scroll's bumpers.

Flava clears her throat and Jaune almost falls off the bed. He completely forgot she was still in the room. She uncrosses her arms to hold her hand out for the scroll. Jaune passes it back to her, red-faced.

"So. That's the invincible Pyrrha Nikos," she says cryptically.

"Yeah." Jaune quickly stands to go, not a fan of the way his sister is appraising him like she knows something he doesn't. "Thanks for letting me use your scroll, Flav. I'll...get right on all those things you wanted."

He leaves back to his room, feeling rejuvenated and light-hearted and just about ready for round two with that Ursa.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Happy Valentine's Day, ya'll! Have some sweet JNPR feels


	4. Chapter 4

Jaune resumes training that night. With Pyrrha's voice still echoing in his head, Jaune rolls out of bed hours after midnight and dresses without waking Amarilla. Soundlessly, he sneaks out of his room and then out of the house to the family's barn. Inside, amid the piles of hay, Jaune grabs one of their pitchforks. It's not Crocea Mors, not by a long shot, but it's heavy and offers him resistance when he swings it. His muscles have lost a lot of their definition from his weeks curled in bed. But he remembers Pyrrha's basics and thinks that he can live with himself for being a failed hunter, but he can't live with himself for lying to Pyrrha.

So he trains. Basic forms and hit combos he used to rehearse with Pyrrha. He's awful at all of them, but he drills them until his arms are burning and he gets a little less awful.

He does this for a week straight, pushing himself to the point of collapse, until he actually collapses during one of his self-imposed drills in a boneless pile of sweat and exhaustion.

"You okay?"

Jaune shrieks and swings his pitchfork around to see Amarilla dangling her legs over the edge of the hayloft above him. She's popping blueberries into her mouth.

"How long have you been there?!" he demands.

"Tonight? Or the last couple of nights?" she says with a neutral expression.

Jaune groans and drops the pitchfork, collapsing back on his stomach.

" _Are_ you okay?" she asks, smirking a little now.

"Ask me again once the heart attack passes," Jaune mumbles into the hay below him. "I thought you were sleeping."

"Explosions and near-Grimm experiences make you half-deaf, right? Do you know how creaky our house is? You're in the _room_ with me." She arcs a blueberry high and catches it easily. "Also, twin telepathy."

"At least tell me you didn't hear me talking to myself," Jaune moans.

"I did not hear you talking to yourself," she repeats with a mischievous lilt. In a beat, she swings over onto to the wooden ladder beside her and starts sliding down to Jaune's level. "But if I _had_ heard such a thing, I might say your Pyrrha Nikos impersonation could use some work."

Jaune gets back on his feet with a sour look, but stops when he spots Amarilla grabbing a second pitchfork. "What are you doing?"

Amarilla fiddles with the tool, balancing it on the ground and bouncing it from hand to hand awkwardly. She doesn't look directly at Jaune. "Could you, um, teach me?"

"Ama, I'm terrible," he says. He can't believe she's actually asking him this. It should be obvious that he is the least qualified person to instruct anyone on being a hunter.

"My birds-eye-view says different," Ama answers a little defensively.

Jaune looks his sister over critically. "Um, why?"

She swings the pitchfork across her shoulders like a scarecrow and looks at her feet. "In nursing, you help people who have already gotten hurt. But hunting… You _stop_ them from getting hurt. It's just as important." Amarilla looks up at Jaune hopefully. "Maybe you could teach me some things and I could teach you other things?"

It takes him a moment to realize she's being serious. He smiles a little. "Okay. I'm going to be an awful teacher though."

Amarilla's confidence returns. "I'm gonna be an awful student. So there's that."

Jaune taps his toe as he thinks, then puts his pitchfork aside. His arms are burning and done for the night anyway. "Let's start with unlocking your aura," Jaune says. "And I know it sounds like I sneezed, but—"

"Aura is a manifestation of the soul, used by hunters for bodily protection and to power their Semblances," Amarilla recites.

"How do _you_ know that?"

"Jaune, Auralogy is a whole thing," she says with a laugh. "It's a whole field of medicine."

Jaune grumbles to himself and Amarilla laughs a little louder.

"No, wait. I gotta hear this. How did you think hunters kept from being Grimm-chow?" she asks earnestly.

Jaune stares at his feet for a long beat, turning redder and redder until he mutters, "I thought hunters were born with invulnerable skin."

Amarilla cackles.

"No one told me, okay?" Jaune says, pouting. "Do you want me to help or not?"

Her laughter turns to giggles. "Sorry, sorry." Amarilla clears her throat, and with a posh accent reminiscent of Weiss, says, "Please, continue."

Grumbling, Jaune steps up to his sister, putting one hand on her shoulder and one over her heart. "Just breathe. And, uh, be patient." Jaune makes a face of concentration. "I'm gonna try to remember a really complicated poem I only heard once."

* * *

Training becomes a nightly routine. Amarilla says she doesn't mind the weird sleep schedule. She'll have to get used to it for nursing rotations eventually. Jaune compensates with after-school naps that make his mother start worrying about his health. He excuses it as exhaustion from catching up on his studies. Mrs. Arc asks if he'd like to join a study group at school, that she and his father would allow that if he thinks it will help. Jaune tries not to decline _too_ fervently. The last thing he wants is to spend more time with his hounding classmates and his overwhelming popularity at school.

Jaune's training make slow progress. He rehashes all of Pyrrha's basics as he teaches them to Amarilla. When her posture is wrong, he demonstrates and fixes her and lets her try again, like Pyrrha did for him. Jaune retraces his whole learning curve and actually starts to understand the moves better when he has to explain them to his sister. She teases him through a lot of it. Not because he's bad, but because he keeps trying to imitate Ozpin or Goodwitch or Pyrrha when he talks.

When either of them gets a particular swing or thrust just right, Amarilla calls time-out and takes a couple minutes to explain to Jaune, in all the gory glory of a medical textbook, what that particular move would have done to the human body without aura. She smiles as Jaune squirms and pales, and then tells Jaune how to hypothetically fix it. Tie off circulation if it's an appendage, remove any dust fragments that might have gotten into the wound to prevent infection, boost their aura with yours if it looks like you won't make it to a hospital within a half hour. It's all helpful — if a little detailed coming from Amarilla.

As they train, Amarilla props her scroll up on two rusty nails so that they can keep track of the time. Every night, she tires out earlier than her brother and leaves Jaune to do a little training on his own, _conveniently_ leaving her scroll behind. Jaune drills his own slightly more advanced training until he can barely lift his pitchfork, then he rewards himself by messaging Pyrrha. She's almost always asleep at the hour he finishes, so he sends her a single long message with updates on his life. Most nights, he sends it and deletes it from the scroll so Amarilla can't tease him about it and heads to bed.

Some nights though, he'll run later than usual or Pyrrha will get up a little earlier for her morning jog, and with their time difference, they _just_ catch each other. Those are the nights Jaune doesn't sleep, grinning as he slouches against a hay bale and messages back and forth with Pyrrha until it's time for class. He tells her about his Ursa fight and she's so proud. She won't even let him claim one element as being 'just lucky'. He asks her questions about fighting; Pyrrha sends him links to videos she used when she was starting out and offers suggestions to tighten his training regiment. She tells him all about challenging class assignments and partner auditions, and she keeps him up-to-date on the exciting tales of their team and RWBY. Sometimes Jaune even regales her with what's going on in his sisters' lives, seeing as the highlight of his day is always talking with her.

Pyrrha asks if he's happy being back home. Jaune always tactfully skirts around the truth. All the while, he restrains himself from saying _I miss you_ as much as he really wants to. Which is really every single text message.

The scroll keeps buzzing one night, earlier than usual. It vibrates so often it threatens to fall off the nails where it's hooked. Every time it does, Jaune sighs with half a smile and ignores it, focusing instead on Amarilla's shield bash. They were using the metal lid of the compost bin.

"She sure is frisky tonight," Amarilla teases, repeating the move as Jaune tells her to.

Jaune blushes. "What? No! It's not Pyrrha." He rolls his eyes, but his fake annoyance is only to mask his amusement. "Nora is on a bit of a sugar high. She's been harassing me all night on Pyrrha's phone because she can't sleep. _Apparently_ , Pyrrha wiped the floor this morning in a sparring session with my old bullies. Nora insists Pyrrha is going to be humble about it so I need to hear the full story from her." He shakes his head, smiling. "Anyway, thrust again, a little higher."

Amarilla drops her shield arm, watching Jaune carefully.

He comes back to the moment, his smile fading. "You tired already?"

"Jaune, you need to talk to dad," she says seriously. "You should be back at Beacon."

Jaune's heart stutters at the words. Reality comes back soon enough though.

"I can't," he mumbles, dropping his pitchfork and gaze to the floor. "You know how dad is when he's made up his mind."

"He hasn't seen you fight," Amarilla insists. "He hasn't seen the way you light up when you talk about your team."

"...my former team," Jaune corrects. Amarilla pretends she doesn't hear.

"Dad's going to be back in a few days from his mission. Get him when he's happy after dinner and _talk to him._ " She looks exasperated as she motions to him. "You're _miserable_ here. Even Gia's noticed and she doesn't notice the weather! Most of the day you're a zombie until you're swinging a rusty pitchfork with me at four in the morning on a school night."

The scroll buzzes again with another message from Nora. Jaune looks at it longingly before shaking his head firmly.

"I already know what he's going to say," he mutters.

Amarilla huffs, annoyed. "Fine. It's your life." She sets her shield and pitchfork on the ground. "I'll see you in the morning."

She leaves him alone in the barn, and he's angry because Amarilla makes it sound so easy. Like it's something anyone could do. But dad never looks at her like he wishes she were someone else. Dad never makes her feel like she's responsible for the family legacy.

Jaune puts down his weapon stand-ins and goes to retrieve the scroll. He scans the obscenely long string of text messages offering a play-by-play of Pyrrha's fight with CRDL, till he reaches the last one. It's from Ren, apologizing for Nora's behavior and promising that he has taken the phone away from her and that they are both going to bed. He hopes Jaune's doing well.

Jaune sighs and taps through Amarilla's scroll to open a writing app. He starts drafting a speech.

* * *

After dinner on the night of Mr. Arc's return, Jaune knocks on the door to his father's study. Mr. Arc calls him in and Jaune braces himself as he crosses the threshold.

His father's study is warm, located in the center of the house where there are no windows. His father's equipment hangs off the back of the door and papers litter his desk with town council duties. High above the empty fireplace, Crocea Mors rests on ornate brass hooks for all to see. In the corner of the room, his great grandfather's full set of armor shines within an upright glass presentation case. The fancy lights around it make it look shinier than it really is.

"Jaune? What is it?" his father asks.

Jaune snaps out of his daze and tears his eyes away from the family heirlooms. With a raised brow, Mr. Arc looks his son up and down.

"You're still grounded," he says gruffly. "If that's what you're here asking about."

"It's not. N-Not exactly," Jaune stammers.

Mr. Arc waits, crossing his arms over his desk. "Well?"

"I-I want…" Jaune digs his nails into his palms. "I want to go back to Beacon, dad."

"To visit your friends," Mr. Arc suggests carefully, knowing full well that's not what Jaune meant but giving him an out.

Jaune shakes his head. But his next words, _I want to be a hunter,_ stay lodged in his throat under the critical gaze of his father.

After a long moment, Mr. Arc leans back in his chair and sighs. "Why did you do it? Why the lying and the stealing and the cheating."

"You weren't going to let me go," Jaune says.

"They weren't going to let you _in,_ Jaune," Mr. Arc corrects. "And I think, in your intelligent mind, you knew that, didn't you. Not unless you had fake scores and a famous family name and our forged approval."

Jaune folds in on himself, his shoulders to his ears. "Dad—"

"I know you want to help people," his father continues. "You and Ama, ever since you were little. All you wanted to do was help others. But there are ways to help others that are less dangerous. Less _risky._ Can you imagine what it would do to your mother if anything happened to you?"

Shuffling from foot to foot, Jaune tries to keep his eyes on his father, when really all he wants is to sink into the floor. "But you… You go out and do it all the time."

"And who's here to take care of your mother and the girls while I'm away?" his father challenges. "Who is going to look after them if anything were to ever happen to me?"

Jaune knows the answer but can't say it aloud. His tongue won't work.

"I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it," Mr. Arc says with a note of finality. When Jaune doesn't say anything for a long minute, Mr. Arc gives his son a thorough once-over. "Your mother tells me you're not sleeping well."

With his eyes on the floor, Jaune nods.

His father sighs. "If you would like to do something with your sisters or your friends tomorrow night while your mother and I are at the mayor's dinner, you are allowed. Your grounding still holds, but I will make an exception for your health. Get some fresh air."

Jaune nods again and turns to go. He throws Crocea Mors one last glance before he leaves.

In bed that night, Jaune wants nothing more than to curl up and sleep, to curse himself and his father and his whole unfortunate luck. It would be easy. He hasn't had a full night's sleep in weeks. And it isn't like anyone is expecting him to do anything but rest. He reaches into his bedside table and pulls out the paper Ozpin had pressed into his hands when he'd left. It's a link to the online portion of the Beacon entrance exam. The one Ruby took, and passed, after Ozpin was impressed by her skill. The one he originally forged.

When the digital clock between his bed and Amarilla's hits scheduled training time, he shuts the alarm off before it can fully wake his sister and sits up with a purpose.

"I'm going to do some solo stuff tonight," he tells her in the dark, pulling up his pants. Amarilla gives him a weak mumble of confirmation.

Jaune marches out to the barn and snatches the metal cover off the compost bin. He grabs the pitchfork from wherever it was left. With a heaving breath on the very verge of tears, Jaune takes a stance in the middle of the barn.

He repeats to himself Pyrrha's pre-training instructions. _Shield up. Grip tight. Front foot forward. Stance wide. Shield up. Grip tight. Front foot forward. Stance wide._ He remembers her voice and it soothes him, pushes him back from the edge. _You're mad; he's not. He has all the control over your momentum. All the control._

His breath steadies. His vision clears. He tightens his grip and stares down an imaginary Beowulf.

With a muted yell, Jaune swings.

* * *

Jaune's parents leave in the early evening to their gala and leave Gia in charge of the house. They're not gone ten minutes before Gia comes down the stairs, dressed for a date.

"Is it still the son of the metalsmith?" Rawaya asks.

"Yes," Gia says simply, proudly. She looks at her four siblings. Rawaya is washing the dishes in the sink. Amarilla is making plans with her friends on her scroll. Flava is watching a romantic comedy on the TV. Jaune stands awkwardly in the corner of the room, waiting for the right moment to escape out to the barn and get some extra training done.

"Heading out. Don't burn the house down," Gia announces. She walks towards Jaune and the door and stops right in front of him. "Dad said grounding was lifted." She raises a brow. "You have plans tonight?"

Jaune shakes his head. "Not unless one of you want to do something."

Gia smiles mysteriously and pulls out Jaune's scroll from her pocket. She places it in his stunned hands. "In case you go out. Don't say I never help." She musses up his hair. Then she's gone into the night like a shadow.

Clutching his scroll like it might vanish if he lets it go, Jaune announces that he'll be in his room. He locks his door, plugs in the scroll, and waits for the battery to charge enough to turn on.

He has over five hundred messages. Texts asking how he is and telling him about adventures, pictures of the new students and of weapon upgrades and class excursions, training videos from Pyrrha and goofing off videos from Ruby, sound clips of Oobleck and Port's classes recorded by Blake and Ren. He _never_ imagined he'd miss those.

Jaune gives the alerts a sweeping glance, feeling his heart swell. But he'll have time later to read through them. He props the scroll on top of his headboard and video calls Pyrrha.

The call connects to an image of Pyrrha in bed wearing reading glasses. She has a book laying flat against her chest. She's thrilled. "Jaune! What an unexpected surprise."

"I got my grounding lifted for tonight," Jaune tells her proudly. "Are you in bed already?"

"Just reading, I'm afraid," she says, holding up the book for him to see. "It's one of Blake's."

Jaune does a double take. "Are you wearing glasses?"

The glasses disappear off her face with a flick of her Semblance. "No," she says quickly, blushing.

"I...I didn't know you wore glasses," he says, sincerely intrigued by the concept. He'd lived with her for a whole semester and had never noticed.

Pyrrha sighs and the spectacles gradually float back onto her face. "I try not to advertise it. Tournament fighter and all," she says sheepishly. "Anything less than 20/20 is a disadvantage. I keep my contacts a secret too."

Jaune smiles understandingly. At least it wasn't something glaringly obvious that he missed. "They look nice on you," he says, because it's true. Combined with the messy bun she's currently sporting, they make Pyrrha look softer around the edges. Less intense.

She laughs nervously, glowing a little pinker. "Oh, I'm sure they'd look nice on anyone," she says. "What are you doing tonight now that your grounding is lifted?"

"Talking to you," he says with a grin. He takes the scroll and holds it over his head as he lies down. "I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I miss you."

Pyrrha laughs outright. "It's a Friday night and you're a free man. You should be out on the town!"

"So should you," he counters, realizing something. "Hey, if secret-glasses Pyrrha is out, where are Nora and Ren?"

"They're, um, out," Pyrrha says, shifting the scroll a little. She looks over at the door. "Yes, they're...out."

"Doing what?" Jaune asks.

"Whatever it is they do," Pyrrha dodges. "I didn't want to intrude. I told them to go on without me, I was fine with this excellent book."

Jaune's brow scrunches. "What about RWBY?"

"They're doing something tonight also."

"Couldn't you have mooched off their plans?"

"I don't like to mooch," Pyrrha answers shyly, tucking hair behind her ear and not making eye contact with him. "Really, I wanted to stay in tonight and read a book and perhaps talk with you when you went to train."

Jaune bites his lip, debating whether or not to push the issue. Pyrrha hated being alone, and he knows from their text conversations that despite a handful of auditions, JNPR has been a three-man team for almost the entire semester now, making Pyrrha the odd man out. Spending her Friday alone willingly felt like self-sacrifice at the level of martyrdom.

He doesn't need to say anything, it turns out. After a long minute of awkwardness, Pyrrha sighs and rubs her eyes, jostling her glasses. "It's...It's the night of the dance tonight, Jaune," she confesses.

Jaune balks. "Then why aren't you at the dance?"

"Because…" She stares at the floor. "Because nobody asked me."

"Someone's pranking you," Jaune says immediately. "They _have_ to be, you… You're _Pyrrha Nikos._ "

"I've told you how hard it's been," she says softly, "for Ozpin to find me another partner. This is… It's the very same thing." She closes her book and sets it aside. "I've been incredibly fortunate, Jaune. I've been given incredible talents and opportunities; I'm constantly surrounded by praise and adoration. But when you're placed on a pedestal like that for so long..." Pyrrha pauses to sigh. She stares at something across the room. "Everyone assumes I'm out of their league. That this pedestal they've placed me on is simply unreachable. It's become impossible to form any sort of meaningful relationship with anyone, so—"

"I would have gone with you."

Pyrrha makes eye contact with Jaune through her screen. She offers a tiny smile. Hopeful. "You… You would have?"

"Of course I would have," Jaune says earnestly. He knew about the partner issue with Ozpin, but hadn't thought much of it. Pyrrha was plenty intimidating until you got to know her, and Jaune was convinced someone _would_ get to know her. He never considered that people would be too scared to even try. "We could've gone as friends. Or partners, like Nora and Ren!"

She laughs a little, breathlessly. "Ren and Nora offered to keep me company if I wanted to go stag. But I felt like such a burden. I didn't want a stranger to start asking questions about why I was alone tonight."

"Well, you're not alone tonight," Jaune says, flipping onto his stomach and smiling warmly at her. "You've got me."

Her smile turns shy. "You know, Ruby asked Ozpin if you could be invited back as her friend-date."

Jaune props his chin in his hand, heart racing. "For real? That's...really cool of her. What did he say?"

"He told her if you wanted to come, you would find a way," she says without a hint of bitterness. It's all encouragement. "But it's alright. You probably wouldn't have enjoyed yourself anyway."

"Really?" he teases. "Because I'm a great dancer."

Pyrrha laughs with a little more gusto, and a little more sadness leaves her eyes. "I had no idea."

Jaune grins, pausing his video. "Hold on one second."

He jumps up from the bed and quickly shuffles through Amarilla's half of the closet. From the paused video, he can hear Pyrrha asking, "Jaune? What are you doing?"

When he turns the video back on a couple minutes later, he's in one of Amarilla's dresses, grinning like a fool. Pyrrha laughs so hard, Jaune fears she might swallow her glasses.

They talk through the entire night until Jaune's parents, and Ren and Nora, come home.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Just a quick dip back into canon so you can see roughly where we are parallel to the main timeline.


	5. Chapter 5

Two days later is a Sunday and the Arcs are sitting down for dinner. Though Mr. Arc is back, the family tradition is maintained. The kids sit spread around the large dinner bench in the dining room as Gia and Mrs. Arc bring out serving plates loaded up with everyone's favorites. Flava is talking with Mr. Arc about some upcoming job opportunities while Rawaya checks her phone. Jaune is trying to reason with his grumbling stomach. Just as Gia sits down to join them, there's a pleasant knock on the door.

Flava, Gia, Rawaya, and Jaune all call, "Not it!"

Amarilla, whose mouth was full of water, glares at her siblings as she rises from the table. She grumbles and leaves the dining room to get the door.

"Tell them we're sitting down to eat," Mr. Arc says as his wife brings the last of the dishes to their long table.

From his seat, Jaune can hear the locks undoing. Then silence.

"Jaune, give me a hand," Amarilla calls. "I think the third bolt is stuck."

"Did you see if the screw is loose?"

" _You_ have a screw loose," she shouts back.

His mother gestures. "Jaune, go help your sister so we can eat."

Jaune sighs and rises. He crosses the house to the door, which is open, and Amarilla, who is smirking.

"Look, see? You got it open without…" Jaune trails off, finally in line of sight of the door.

Ren is standing on his welcome mat.

"I hope we didn't interrupt your dinner," he says, with a tone of voice that is cheeky only by Ren standards.

Jaune thinks he's hallucinating until a flash of pink darts out from somewhere behind Ren and lifts him off the ground.

"I hope we _did_ interrupt dinner and that you saved us some!" Nora announces, carrying Jaune horizontally over both her shoulders and grinning maniacally as she spins him.

"Nora, put him down," Ren intones.

Gracelessly, Nora dumps Jaune back on his feet. By the time Jaune's vision refocuses, he's found his voice.

"Ren!" he says happily, wrapping his arms around the shorter boy's shoulders. Ren shrugs the pack off his shoulder to hug him right back. "Nora! What are you guys doing here?"

"Official hunter business," Nora says with a playful formality. "Pyrrha can explain it."

Jaune's heart jumps into his throat and he looks back out the door. Pyrrha is half-hunched to speak through the window of a taxi cab, offering the driver an autograph. Jaune gives Ren one more squeeze and calls to her.

She looks up, her smile more dazzling in person than he ever remembered it. She gives the pen back to the driver and jogs to the house. Jaune rushes out to meet her and then they...stop. With a foot and a half between them. In silence.

"It's so good to see you again," Pyrrha says awkwardly, clasping her hands in front of her.

"Yeah," Jaune says, playing with the fringe of his hoodie. "You too. What are you guys doing out here?"

"We took an assignment to protect a nearby town from Grimm," Pyrrha says, adjusting the duffel bag on her shoulder. "The hunter we're shadowing isn't due to arrive until tomorrow, but Ozpin said we might want to go early and get a lay of the land." There's a twinkle in her eye as she says it.

"That's...that's a great idea. Go Ozpin," Jaune answers, still smiling.

"He's a very smart man," Pyrrha agrees.

There's another beat of silence.

"I missed you," he blurts. And Jaune...kinda opens his arms for a hug if she's cool with that.

Pyrrha smiles even wider and slowly steps into his arms, her own going around his waist. She closes her eyes and rests her chin on his shoulder and murmurs, "I missed you too."

He missed the smell of her. The Mistrali shampoo, the tang of sweat and metal, and even her stupid spray-on deodorant. Jaune takes one whiff of her and he's back in the JNPR dorm with all three of them like no time has passed at all.

* * *

Jaune chooses to ignore that all six members of his family are standing in the doorway when he turns back to his house. Their expressions vary from his parents' confusion to Amarilla's know-it-all smugness. Pyrrha follows him back to the house, close enough to brush the back of her hand with his as they walk, and Jaune introduces his team to his family.

His mother immediately suggests they stay for dinner. Pyrrha's polite deferral that they don't want to impose is counteracted by Nora's ravenous enthusiasm.

The three hunters drop their bags and weapons in the living room, then take the spots at the end of the table where the eldest three Arc sisters would have sat. Seats are shuffled so that Jaune ends up sitting next to Pyrrha, across from Ren and Nora, as Mr. Arc eyes the four of them from the other end of the table. He wants to know the details of this supposed 'mission'. Ren obliges Jaune's father as Gia sets the extra plates. Nora helps with embellishment that Pyrrha patiently corrects. At the end of the table closest to their parents, Rawaya keeps shooting side glances at Pyrrha and looking away, blushing and starstruck. Flava is less subtle about her staring. Amarilla won't stop smirking.

But Jaune doesn't care. They're _here._ He can't keep the smile off his face as he watches them interact with his family.

When his mother sets out the leftover food she'd been planning on refrigerating, Mr. Arc says grace and the family leaps into action, reaching for and playfully fighting over and passing serving plates around. Nora grabs her plate and nearly climbs over Gia to reach the casserole she wants. Ren sighs and apologizes for his partner's behavior. Gia nods good-naturedly and hands Ren the dish he's reaching for. Jaune half-stands and starts loading up his plate. Next to him, Pyrrha sits back in her seat, content to watch the madness and politely wait for everyone to serve themselves before serving herself.

She startles when Jaune clunks a full plate of food in front of her.

"Are you still on that no-carb diet?" he asks, a bread roll in hand hovering over her plate.

Pyrrha blinks at it for a long moment. "Oh...yes. Thank you, Jaune."

Jaune nods and drops the roll on an empty plate. He dives back into the fray for his own dinner, catching only a glimpse of the slowly growing smile on Pyrrha's face as she admires the very meal she would have picked out for herself. Standing fully to reach for the sausages at the other end of the table, Jaune misses Pyrrha's expression as she looks up at him. He _definitely_ misses the knowing looks Gia, Flava, and Amarilla shoot Pyrrha in turn. By the time Jaune sits back down with his food, he's confused by Pyrrha's sudden blush. His former partner dedicatedly stabs green beans onto her fork with the mortifying realization that Jaune's obliviousness is not genetic.

Dinner carries on without incident. Amarilla sits on Jaune's other side and stays unnervingly quiet through most of dinner as Jaune's parents pepper his team with questions about hunting. Rawaya stutters her way through questions about some of her favorite hunting teams at Beacon. Nora regales with stories about their latest adventures, played up for her audience of course, and Ren lazily fact-checks her between bites. Jaune asks them questions he already knows the answer to, about studies and class and such, if only to wholly sell to his parents that he _definitely_ has not been communicating with them in violation of his grounding. Gia ignores everyone and heads to her room as soon as she's finished eating. Flava asks about teaching internships at Beacon and about the upcoming Vytal Festival.

"Oh, we're in the process of qualifying," Nora says off-handedly, going for thirds.

"Qualifying?" Mr. Arc says, coffee mug halfway to his lips. "In my day, you were automatically entered as a student of the academies. You didn't have to _qualify_ for the Vytal Festival."

"You do if you're a three-man team," Ren explains. He's blowing on the tea Jaune's mom set in front of him.

Mr. Arc looks the three of them over, in their impressively vibrant hunting gear, and frowns. "Where's your fourth?"

There's a second where it looks like Nora is going to point to Jaune. But Ren grabs her hand and subtly pins it to the table. Jaune exhales a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

"We're in the process of auditioning for a fourth member," Ren says without inflection.

Jaune feels his mother's eyes dance over him briefly before asking, "Oh? I thought Ozpin said he'd be replacing your team leader at the start of the semester?"

For some reason, the word 'replace' feels like a kick to Jaune's stomach. "It's...not so easy, mom," he says carefully.

"Didn't they just shoot you into a forest and tell you the first people you saw were your team?" Flava asks. She taps her fork to her empty plate. "Can't they, I don't know, do that _again_?"

"Sure, it's easy when it's a _new_ team," Nora answers, wriggling her hand out from under Ren's. "But there's a _zillion_ more things to consider when you're adding a stranger to an established team."

"Particularly when the candidate needs to be a team leader _and_ partner to Pyrrha Nikos," Ren adds solemnly.

Attention turns to Pyrrha, who had been focusing on her food for most of dinner, if only to avoid the knowing smirks Amarilla kept sending her behind Jaune's back. She looks up from her plate at the mention of her full name. "Oh, yes, it's been quite the interview process," she agrees neutrally. She nods her head towards Jaune warmly. "Jaune is proving to be quite irreplaceable."

He takes a drink of water to swallow down the lump in his throat, the thrumming in his heart. "It's just taking some time," Jaune tells his family.

Pyrrha eyes him through her lashes, confused, and Jaune reaches for some food, whatever's left. Anything to get out from under her gaze.

"We've been considering candidates all semester, but it doesn't seem we'll have one in time for the Vytal Festival," Ren continues. "Hence why we're qualifying to compete as a three-man team."

Mr. Arc scowls. "And they'll let you do that?"

"Well," Rawaya says quietly, "they do have _Pyrrha Nikos_ on their team."

Pyrrha smiles graciously. Rawaya means well, but Jaune knows that smile far too well to believe even for a second that Pyrrha is comfortable with the sudden attention. Jaune changes the topic as his mother stands to go grab desert from the kitchen. "Hey, so, I meant to ask… Who _is_ team leader now?"

Ren, Nora, and Pyrrha exchange an awkward look. Then Ren and Nora's looks turn to Pyrrha expectantly. She puts down her fork with the last bite of food. "Well, we take turns leading in training and in group sparring. It goes alright." Pyrrha throws Nora the whisper of a glare. "Most of the time." The smaller redhead shrugs. "We've...mostly been running your old formations," Pyrrha finishes in a small voice.

Jaune stares at her. "My old formations."

"Yes. We've gotten some input from Ruby and Coco, but they both agree that the foundations are pretty solid."

There's a clatter from the other end of the table. Rawaya quickly straightens the plastic mug that had slipped out of her hands. She looks from Pyrrha to Jaune. "Coco Adele thinks _your formations_ are awesome?"

"She said _pretty solid_ ," Jaune corrects quickly. Then turning back to Pyrrha, he says, "Pyrrha...my old formations were garbage."

"Nah, they were pretty great. We won most of our team battles with them," Nora says proudly. Ren nods his agreement.

Jaune gapes at them. "Not because of _me!_ "

"Because we were a _team_ , Jaune," Pyrrha says, quietly but firmly.

Jaune looks at the three of them, only dimly aware that his family has gone quiet through all this. He doesn't understand — until Ren raises a brow at him, and Nora gives him a _come on_ look, and ever so gingerly, Pyrrha nudges his knee with her own. They didn't come all the way out to his town in the middle of nowhere for a Grimm sweep, or at least, not _only_ for a Grimm sweep.

They were there to bring him back to Beacon. To prove to his parents that they needed him there.

Jaune's blood pounds in his ears. His heart does this strange flip-flop of emotion. He opens and closes his mouth a few times before murmuring, "Guys…"

Mrs. Arc returns with a cake in hand. Discussion pauses for everyone to get a plate and a slice.

"So what plans did you three have before your hunter arrived?" Mrs. Arc asks, oblivious to the prior conversation.

"They were just saying how they wanted to go into town tonight," Amarilla says suddenly, the first thing she's said all of dinner. "Jaune and I can take them."

Jaune's father raises a brow. "They were?"

"They were _going to_ ," she says casually. "They're visiting from out of town, dad. They probably want to see things, get the lay of the land for their mission, stuff like that."

"That _would_ be helpful," Pyrrha says.

"Could we?" Jaune asks, finding excitement in the prospect of having an evening out on the town with his team.

"You're _grounded_ , Jaune," his father reminds him.

"That's alright!" Nora says, kicking her feet under the table and bouncing in her seat. "We could stick around in your house. Oh! Do you have any board games? We could play board games. Or do farm stuff! Like chasing chickens."

Mr. Arc assesses Nora and reconsiders.

His wife puts a hand on his shoulder. "The Vytal Festival is right around the corner, dear. And Jaune has been _very_ good about his grounding," she tells him.

Amarilla and Rawaya nod their agreement. Flava looks like she might rat him out, but Jaune locks eyes with her desperately and she groans.

"He's been a real boy scout about the whole thing," Flava intones with an eye roll.

Mr. Arc sighs. "Alright. I suppose we can lift your grounding early."

Jaune grins from ear to ear as he stands and gestures for his team to do the same. "C'mon, I can't wait to take you guys into town."

"Maybe they should change," his mother suggests, looking Jaune's friends up and down. "People are going to see a team of hunters walking around downtown and think there's something going on. You know how people worry."

Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora glance over in the direction of their bags, at the casual change of clothes _not_ in those bags, but Amarilla butts in before Jaune can make excuses for his friends.

"Don't worry," she says, heading for the stairs. She beckons JNPR to follow. "Rawa and I got this."

* * *

Ren is deposited in the foyer five minutes later in a unisex green plaid shirt that Jaune is pretty sure belonged to one of his eldest sisters. He's in a pair of Jaune's bleached jeans that are rolled up at the bottom to adjust for the height. Jaune's sisters let him keep his hunting boots on.

He drops down on the couch next to Jaune with a sigh. "Not one word."

"You look great," Jaune says anyway, grinning.

Ren leans his head back, crosses his arms, closes his eyes. "Wake me when the girls are ready."

Nora skips down the stairs ten minutes later in a short pink ballet dress with blue and white hearts that Jaune's seen Rawaya wear before. She's in a matching headband and little tie-up sandals and looks like she should be running through a cornfield for a healthy brand commercial. Ren too for that matter. Jaune starts to feel underdressed in his usual hoodie and jeans.

Fifteen more minutes and there's still no sign of Pyrrha. Ren is dozing lightly on the couch and Nora is looking around the house at all his family's knick-nacks and whispering, "I feel like I'm in an old-timey movie." Jaune takes the stairs two at a time to see what the hold-up is.

Outside Rawaya's door, he hears, "She still looks like Pyrrha Nikos."

"That's because she _is_ Pyrrha Nikos, Rawa."

Pyrrha tries to interject. "It's really no trouble—"

"I would feel better with a little _more_ disguise at least," Rawaya mutters.

"You don't have to give her a full makeover," Amarilla says, exasperated. "Benefit of the doubt does half the work. No one's going realize she's Pyrrha Nikos, because no one in their right mind would expect her here, of all places."

Jaune knocks on the door. "Can I come in?"

Pyrrha's "Yes" supersedes both of his sisters' "No."

Jaune pushes the door open to find Pyrrha sitting on Rawaya's bed. Her headpiece is gone; instead, half of her hair is done up in a fancy braid crown, while the other half falls loosely down her back. She's wearing Amarilla's jean shorts and a burgundy strappy top that looks like something Flava would have owned. It matches with Pyrrha's brown and gold hunting booties which she taps together as Jaune appraises her.

"What's the issue?" he asks. "She looks fine."

Pyrrha smiles gratefully. Rawaya scowls.

"Jaune, I know you are desensitized to all this, but she is going to get mobbed the moment someone realizes who she is."

Jaune looks Pyrrha over again, feeling even more underdressed, and snaps his fingers as a thought comes to him. "One second."

He darts across the hall to his and Amarilla's room, yanking out a box from under his bed. There's a navy blue V-neck shirt in there that Amarilla always teased him about wearing. Jaune pulls off his hoodie and puts on the shirt as he keeps digging. He finds what he's looking for at the bottom of the box with the rest of its costume. He throws on a jean jacket as he returns to Rawaya's room.

"Here," he says, settling the glasses on Pyrrha's face. "They're from my old X-Ray costume. They're not real, of course," he says quickly as Pyrrha adjusts the frames experimentally. "Ha ha. You don't need _real_ glasses or anything like that. Obviously."

Pyrrha half-smiles at his attempts to lampshade her secret. "Thank you, Jaune." She turns to his sisters. "Well?"

Rawaya tilts her head. "It works. Somehow."

Amarilla steps back and squints. "Why does this _work_?"

Jaune smiles at his sisters as Pyrrha stands. "It makes her look softer."

Pyrrha's face invents a new shade of scarlet. "...Soft?"

Jaune gasps and backpedals. "Good soft! Soft is _good_. Soft like— Like…"

"Like you would not crush a man's head between your thighs," Rawaya says by way of explanation.

Pyrrha crosses her arms over her stomach. "Do I usually look like I could do that?"

"No," Jaune says firmly. He gives Rawaya a pointed look. " _No she does not_." Rawaya holds both hands up in surrender. Jaune turns back to Pyrrha. "Pyr, you look great. Let's go before Ren starts to snore."

Pyrrha nods and relaxes at the compliment. She heads out of the room and down the hall.

"Nice shirt, by the way," Amarilla teases.

Jaune turns to glare at his sister, only just realizing that Amarilla is in going-out clothes as well.

"You're not coming with us," Jaune says sternly. Amarilla just smiles.

"Of course I am." She pats Jaune's arm as she leaves. "Someone's going to need to chaperone."

Jaune sputters after her, turning to Rawaya for support. Only to find her smoothing out the creases on a pin-up photo of Pyrrha in hunting attire that is freshly signed to Rawaya, _With love._

"Rawa!"

"I was not going to have another opportunity," she defends, moving to put the photo up on her wall, beside the one of Neptune and various other junior hunting teams.

Pulling his hair, Jaune grumbles something about never letting his friends near his family ever again. Rawaya hushes him with a giggle.

As Jaune heads out back to the foyer, the door to his parents' room opens and his mother steps out.

"Wherever did you get this handsome jacket?" she asks, fixing the twisted collar and rubbing out a small stain on the denim sleeve.

"You got it for me," Jaune answers, smiling reluctantly at his mother's teasing. She smiles back.

"Keep an eye on your friends tonight when you go into town," she says absently, setting his hair back into a proper arrangement.

Jaune fidgets. "Mom, they're all hunters."

"Yes, but I'd feel better if you kept an eye on Ms. Marshmallow Flakes," she says, attempting to tame a difficult cowlick.

"Pyrrha can take care of herself." He chuckles. "She's won like a bazillion tournaments."

With a feigned disinterest, Mrs. Arc clucks her tongue. "I'm not talking about Grimm, honey. She's very beautiful and you may be the last gentleman in Remnant."

 _"Mom."_

"I mean it." She tips Jaune's chin to look at her. "You don't think so?"

Jaune can't meet her eye. "I guess..."

Mrs. Arc smiles knowingly. "Honey, wars have been fought over women less stunning than your friend."

He's sure he's blushing furiously now. "She's just Pyrrha, mom," he insists. "She gets embarrassed when people fawn over her. She doesn't like it."

The teasing look drops from his mother's face. She doesn't say anything as Jaune takes a step back, waiting for her approval to go. Mrs. Arc regains her smile after a long minute of consideration and cups her son's face in her hands. "Of course, sweetie. You're so busy seeing people for their hearts, you forget that there's a rest of them." She leans in and kisses his forehead. "There are worse problems to have. Have fun in town."

"Thanks, mom," he says awkwardly and heads towards the foyer.

Ren's been woken from his eternal slumber and is standing by the doorway. Amarilla and Nora are marvelling at the convenient pockets in Nora's dress. Pyrrha is waiting for him by the stairs.

"Everyone good to go?" he asks, trying to will away the lingering color in his cheeks. His team and his sister nod. Pyrrha smiles at him in a way that makes him briefly wonder if she could hear his conversation with his mother from the stairs. His blush comes back in force.

Ren, Nora, and Amarilla head out. Pyrrha pauses beside him, holding her scroll in her hand while Jaune locks the door.

"I like your shirt, by the way," she says as they start to walk. Jaune smiles at her.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Hey look! It's that JNPR reunion everyone was dying to see! Arcs + the JNPR berries = all the feels.

Also, all you people faving and following from a distance: I see you and I appreciate you :)


	6. Chapter 6

JNPR and Amarilla head into town to get a drink and take in the sights. There's plenty of people milling about on the sidewalks and clustered around the establishments open late, and it takes less than ten minutes for Mrs. Arc's prediction to come true.

Ren and Nora stop at a window to browse the candies inside. Jaune falls back a little to see what they're looking at, and for all of a few seconds, Pyrrha looks like she's alone. From the shadows of an unlit storefront, some guy immediately descends on Pyrrha, asking for her name and what she's doing alone in town on a night like this. Amarilla doesn't miss a beat. She swoops in just as fast, just as Pyrrha is starting on a polite denial, to drape an arm around Pyrrha's waist and move Pyrrha's arm around her own shoulder, telling the sleazeball to beat it because Pyrrha is with _her._

Amarilla quickly leads Pyrrha back to the others as Pyrrha is still trying to process what has just happened. By the time Jaune looks back up to wonder where Pyrrha wandered off to, Amarilla is grabbing her brother's wrist and setting Jaune's arm across Pyrrha's shoulders in place of her own.

"Sorry about that," Amarilla says to Pyrrha, grimacing at the retreating figure. "You're really obvious tourists. Might as well throw steaks to the lions in this town." She indicates Jaune's arm. "Stick close."

As Amarilla fetches their teammates, Jaune does his best to act casual about having his arm draped across Pyrrha's shoulders. "Is this okay? I know you don't like..."

"No, no, it's fine."

"You sure? You can just walk close if this is weird..."

"It's not weird," Pyrrha promises. She clasps her Scroll in both hands and leans a little against Jaune to prove how not weird it is.

Nora and Ren walk over in a similar configuration, no doubt at Amarilla's suggestion. It's slightly more convenient for them since they aren't the same height. Also, Ren isn't blushing like a fool either. He very convincingly plays the part of a boyfriend to Nora's beaming smile.

"What about you?" Ren asks Amarilla as she walks in front of them unaccompanied.

"Oh, don't worry about me," she says, flapping a hand dismissively. "It's common knowledge whose team I bat for."

"Her reputation will keep her warm," Jaune elaborates. Amarilla's flapping hand turns into an affectionate middle finger.

"Ooooooo...can we go there?" Nora asks, pointing to a bar with zig-zagging fairy lights across the ceiling.

Jaune pales. "Any bar but that one."

"Why?"

"Jaune and I aren't allowed in that one anymore," Amarilla explains. "He threw a guy through a window. It was a whole thing."

His team gives him a _look_.

"It was an accident," Jaune says sheepishly.

"This one has better atmosphere anyway," Amarilla says, pointing to another bar a block over that has live music spilling out of it.

The five of them wander over. It's not overly crowded for a Sunday night, and they easily manage seats at the bar. Amarilla produces a handful of drink tickets and asks the young bartender if they're still valid. The man rolls his eyes good-naturedly and says they're more than valid for the Arclights.

When everyone has produced valid identification in the form of hunting permits and IDs, the bartender starts on everyone's drinks and Ren asks, "What's an arclight?"

In the time it takes Jaune to make a convincing enough noise of dismissal, Amarilla says, "The Arclights was our band name."

Nora chokes on the olive she's just caught in her mouth. Ren thumps her on the back as Pyrrha peers over at Amarilla. "You were in a band?"

Jaune drops his head to the bar and buries his face in his arms as Amarilla trills, "Yup. With Jaune." She points to a wall of polaroids behind the bar. Following the line of Amarilla's finger leads to a mostly dark photo of a little blonde boy on guitar and a little equally blonde girl on the drums.

"How old were you?" Nora asks, sounding far too enthused at the prospect.

"Not old enough to know better," Jaune mumbles.

Pyrrha pats his arm. "Jaune, you play lovely guitar."

"Hey, Lanse, do you still have any of our old demos?" Amarilla asks brightly.

The young bartender returns with everyone's drinks and a disarming smile. "I ain't gonna do that to your brother, Rilla."

Jaune lifts his head with a relieved look. "You're my favorite, Lanse."

"And you ain't nowhere near the worst thing that's played my stage, Jauney," Lanse answers. He sets a shot in front of each of them in addition to their drinks. Lanse winks. "On the house. For my favorite band."

Jaune sniffs the shot — tequila — and makes a face. Amarilla holds her shot glass up. "Shall we toast?"

Ren raises his without missing a beat. "To Juniper."

"To Juniper. _My_ favorite band," Nora says with a smirk.

"To Juniper," Pyrrha chimes, lifting her shot to Jaune. He takes his shot and clinks it with hers.

"Cheers," he agrees. "To Juniper."

The five of them sip at their drinks. Jaune gets more details about the happenings at Beacon; he hears all about the dance and the CCTS tower break-in, about Roman Torchwick and all the new teams. When the live band finishes up, Lanse offers Jauney and Rilla first choice at the old jukebox in the corner. Nora beats Jaune to the tokens on the bartop and scurries off to pick a song, dragging Ren and her fruity invention of a cocktail along. Amarilla excuses herself to the bathroom a moment later, leaving Jaune and Pyrrha with their drinks and each other.

He props his chin on his fist to better look at her. Their barstools are really far too close, he notices. "So. What are you thinking about?"

Pyrrha giggles in a way that reminds him to keep her away from alcohol in the future. She mimics his chin-in-hand posture. "So. There's some people by the door who've seen through my grand disguise," she says casually.

Jaune looks over. His stomach lurches at the sight of Crystal and her friends staring. They glance away when they notice Jaune's caught them.

"Sorry, those are for me, actually." He quickly takes another big gulp of beer. It's not as disgusting as the beer Amarilla wanted him to drink, but he still hates the stuff.

"Oh," Pyrrha says. There's a strange note in her voice as she lowers her arm back to the bartop. "And the...group in the corner by the pool table?"

Jaune half turns in his seat to catch sight of a clique of former friends. They're in a dimly lit booth with a boardgame between them. All four immediately duck their head before Jaune can make out who is who.

He turns back in his seat to address Pyrrha. "How did you...?"

Almost imperceptibly, Pyrrha indicates the end of the bar. "And one more."

It's Carnelia, eyeing Jaune and Pyrrha with the intensity of a hawk with a degree in brain surgery. Jaune breaks eye contact and attempts to hide behind Pyrrha.

Pyrrha stirs the ice in her vodka cranberry with a grin. "You weren't kidding about being popular these days."

Jaune sighs and asks Lanse for a water. "Well, you know how it is."

"I do," Pyrrha says warmly. She indicates Jaune's other side. "More of your friends?"

Jaune turns to look. Some of Ashton's group are ogling Pyrrha in her short-shorts.

"Regrettably, no," Jaune says. He scoots closer to Pyrrha and circles his arm around her waist, glaring back at the group of guys all the while. Pyrrha makes a hum of approval at the back of her throat before Jaune can ask if the gesture is okay. "How's your drink?" he asks instead.

 _"Delicious."_

Nora finally decides on a song, and the speakers attached to the old jukebox spread it through the whole bar. It's by an artist Ren introduced them all to, way back at the beginning of their first semester. Jaune and Pyrrha recognize it at the same time.

Jaune grimaces as he tips back the last of his beer, then holds his hand out to Pyrrha.

Beaming, Pyrrha takes it. "A rock star _and_ a dancer. I really had no idea."

Jaune blushes. Obviously from all the beer. "Hey, I didn't know you were farsighted," he counters, acting offended. "You could be keeping all kinds of secrets from me."

Pyrrha stands, and with a genuine fondness, she says, "Never from you."

Jaune leads her into the crowd. They reach the group on the dancefloor, including Ren and Nora, and Jaune offers Pyrrha a hand to clasp. Pyrrha takes it and situates her other hand on his shoulder with a practiced ease. Jaune raises a brow teasingly.

"Not even _one_ secret?" he asks, moving his hand to the dip of her waist.

"Well… maybe _one_ ," Pyrrha confesses, her smile shy. She tilts her head ever so slightly towards the bar behind him. "Your fan club is paying rapt attention, by the way."

"Good," Jaune says, and he means it. He dips Pyrrha unexpectedly and pulls her up into a spin, twirling her out and back into his arms, grinning like a fool. "They might learn some moves."

Pyrrha starts laughing. She bows her head in a futile effort to keep it in and her forehead brushes Jaune's. And in spite of the alcohol and the unwanted attention, Jaune finds a new warmth spreading through him from his chest to his toes. It's utter joy and something he can't quite put his finger on.

He tucks his head close and whispers, "I've missed you _so_ much."

With the back of her hand, Pyrrha fixes the glasses Jaune almost dislodged with his spin. Smiling, she swears, "Not as much as I missed you."

Jaune doesn't believe that's possible for a second.

* * *

The night is danced away until the venue is just closing up. JNPR and Amarilla hang back to help Lanse clean up as thanks for all the discounted drinks. As Ren sweeps up the floor, Nora washes the windows and Pyrrha collects beer cans from the floor with her semblance and drops them in the recycling bins. Jaune and Amarilla help Lanse clean glasses and wipe the bar top.

"You've got some great friends," Lanse says, glancing up from counting the register money. "Ya'll met at Beacon?"

"Yeah. They were my teammates," Jaune says absently, mesmerized by the sight of Pyrrha crumpling cans into palm-sized disks. Nora comes in from outside and insists she can zap Pyrrha's aluminum disks out of the air like skeet. When Pyrrha hesitates, Ren bats one into the air with his broom. Nora sends it flying across the room with just a whisper of static.

"Oh. I guess that makes sense," Lanse says. "Ya'll just seem so different."

Jaune shrugs one shoulder. "Uh, yeah. I guess we are..."

Amarilla comes up from the stairs below the bar with washed and rinsed bar mats. "Hey, when did Carnelia finally leave you alone, Lanse?"

"About an hour before we threw everyone out."

Jaune swallows hard. "She was bothering you?"

"She was pestering me about your friends," Lanse says. "Specifically that one." He juts his chin at Pyrrha, who catches Ren's next putt out of the air an inch away from the overhead light.

Lanse closes the register with a satisfying chime. "Yeah, she didn't believe me when I said she was probably your girlfriend."

"Oh," Jaune mutters. He wipes down the mug in his hands for the third time.

When the bar is fully closed up, they say their goodbyes to Lanse and Ren confirms that he's falling asleep where he's standing from the time zone change. They decide the night is nice enough to head back to the Arc house through the countryside. About halfway there, they reach a large grazing field where a smattering of cows are sleeping standing up. Amarilla offers to teach Nora how to cow-tip and Nora doesn't need to be offered twice. She and Amarilla are sneaking across the field before the others realize they should probably be stopping them. Ren graciously offers to collect them.

Jaune jumps up on the border fence to wait out the excitement. Pyrrha hops up next to him, swinging her feet as she looks out at the moonlit field and the shapes of dimly glowing white cows herded together in the night.

"I never had this, growing up," Pyrrha says absently, staring out over the field.

Unable to resist, he says, "What, you've never had a ginger ale and grenadine dressed up to look like a vodka cranberry?"

Pyrrha looks apologetic. "When did you notice?"

"When I asked Lanse to water down my second round and I noticed the bubbles in yours," Jaune answers smartly.

Pyrrha rolls her eyes and takes it in stride.

"I meant _this,"_ she says, indicating the field and the glowing lights of Jaune's town in the distance. "People who watched me grow up. Places that know my favorite drink and which songs I like on the jukebox. A life that's...lived-in, you know?"

Pyrrha sounds wistful. Jaune tests his weight on the old wooden fence to avoid answering her right away. He knocks his heel against the wooden plank, debating how much he wants to say, then decides _all of it_.

"That's what I hate about it," he says quietly. "Everyone's known you since you were little so they think they know _you_. They have this expectation of who you're supposed to be in their head, like you're not allowed to change. And if you _do_ change because you want to become something different that what you were..." Jaune makes a motion like stuffing something big into a small box.

Pyrrha doesn't answer. Jaune can't look at her, already feeling the guilt crawling up from his stomach because he shouldn't have said anything, he shouldn't have ruined her evening.

He brings his legs up to cross and balance on the fence, his shoulders rising to his ears. "It's… I'm sorry. You don't want to—"

"Jaune," Pyrrha says. "The people that matter know how amazing you can be. How amazing you _are_." Her fingers brush his as she moves to hold his hand. "Come with us on assignment tomorrow."

There's such hope in her voice; it makes him swell with promise, then pops his heart like a balloon. Jaune shakes his head. "I wouldn't be able to keep up, Pyr."

It hurts to say it, but it's a truth they both need to hear. He wasn't on their level when he was training and learning every day at Beacon. He is so behind now.

She starts to protest. "That's not true..."

"It wouldn't matter anyway," Jaune says, looking up at the stars. "Everyone thinks I've already become the greatest hunter in the world. Or they think I'm so incompetent, I don't have an ice cube's chance in Vacuo." He shrugs awkwardly. "It's kind of incredible. But you probably know all about this sort of thing."

Jaune has more he wants to say, but he stops when he feels Pyrrha's hand squeezing his. Mustering his bravery, he looks over. Her expression is warm, her face framed by starlight and his sister's braid crown and he feels so stupid all of the sudden because _of course_ she knows. She's Pyrrha Nikos. He forgets that all the time.

"Jaune," she says gently. "You'll always be _you_ to me."

He makes this breathless sound, part laugh and part something else, startled out of him by her unexpected response. When he stops, there's a lump in his throat that wasn't there before. For a moment, he doesn't know what to say that isn't a joke or a dodge. The 'thank you' gets stuck on his tongue, lodged between his teeth and all the things he doesn't have a name for.

Pyrrha gets it. She shifts closer to him so that they're shoulder to shoulder on the fence and sets their linked hands in her lap. She smiles at him, softly, and Jaune feels that warmth again, all over.

He squeezes her hand. "You'll always be you to me too, Pyr."

"I know," she says, her smile never wavering. "That's what I've always liked about you."

"So...we're even?"

Pyrrha stifles a laugh, and Jaune's pretty sure the light's never caught on her eyes quite _that_ way ever before. "Very much so," she says.

They stay holding hands and admiring the night until Ren returns with Nora over one shoulder. Amarilla is carrying on a conversation with the smaller girl as they walk, something about survivors of lightning strikes, and Ren looks a little queasy. Jaune and Pyrrha hop off the fence to join them, if only to save Ren and repay him for talking the girls out of trouble.

The five walk back to the Arc house through the woods, a shortcut Amarilla swears won't be a problem with the four of them accompanying her. Jaune holds out his arm to help Pyrrha cross an itty-bitty stream and is indescribably grateful when she holds onto it the rest of the walk.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Lan Se is "Blue" in Chinese.

And now, for something new...


	7. Chapter 7

The rest of the house is asleep upon their return. Despite Ren's insistence that the school paid for a hotel, the Arcs easily convince JNPR to stay with them for the night. Quietly, Jaune and Amarilla drag in mattresses from the rooms of two of the Arc sisters who have already left home and, without a single word from Jaune, Amarilla volunteers to go sleep in their eldest sister's bedroom.

"Add it to the list of things you owe me," she says smugly to Jaune in the hallway as she grabs her toiletries. "You can't miss it. It's the notebook on my bedside table. Put it in right under 'shortened your grounding' and 'didn't murder anyone at the bar on your behalf'."

"I _will_ make it up to you," Jaune promises, grabbing extra pillows from the hallway closet.

"Good. Because my rain checks will still be valid when you're 85."

Jaune moves a pillow under one arm and hugs his sister suddenly. "Thank you. For everything. Really."

Amarilla snatches the pillow and smothers Jaune's face in it, grinning. "Go be a sentimental nerd with your friends."

Ren strips down and collapses into Amarilla's bed, staying awake only long enough to comment that all the anatomy charts are going to give him nightmares. Jaune sits on the mattress on the floor next to Pyrrha, using his own bed as a backrest. Nora sprawls out across both their laps with an exaggerated purring noise. Laughing quietly, Pyrrha pats Nora's head. Jaune twists around to pull out a modest stack of board games, playing cards, and a handheld console from under his bed.

The three of them play Compost King and Go Fish and Hungry, Hungry Huckles. Jaune talks a little about school at Pyrrha's insistence, though all his stories are deemed boring by Nora. He teaches Pyrrha how to play his favorite handheld video game, watching over her shoulder proudly as her score climbs. Nora peruses through his long box of comic books and reads through his early issues of _X-Ray and Vav_. Neither of them admit to being tired when Jaune periodically asks. He believes Nora more than he believes Pyrrha.

When his training alarm goes off, the girls jump and Ren startles awake.

"Sorry, sorry!" Jaune apologizes, jumping up from the floor to smack the device off.

"Training time?" Ren asks groggily.

Jaune rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah, sorry."

"Don't let us interrupt," Pyrrha says earnestly. "You should still get your practice in."

"We'll join you!" Nora announces. Ren is cognizant enough to hush her for being too loud.

"But you guys must be _exhausted_ —"

"Nonsense," Pyrrha says. She gets to her feet, looking more awake than she has in the last hour. She grabs her duffel bag from the foot of the bed and heads for the bathroom, Nora in tow. "There's always time to train."

Ren makes a noise that could be a curse word and blindly reaches for his own bag.

"Ren, you don't have to wake up for _this_ ," Jaune insists.

"Nora's gonna blow your house up," he mumbles with conviction. He's sitting up a moment later, eyes half shut, trying to find the sleeve of his shirt.

As Jaune panics internally, Ren gets fully dressed and the girls return in their own hunting attires, weapons in hand. Then the inevitable question arises.

"Jaune? Where's your gear?" Pyrrha says.

He rocks back on his heels, hands deep in his jean pockets. "It's...um...it's downstairs."

"Go get it, slowpoke!" Nora teases.

Jaune stares at his feet. "I can't."

Ren raises a brow. "Why?"

Might as well get it over with. Jaune sighs and leads the way for his team to his father's study. The door is locked. He gestures to it helplessly.

"It's in there. With all my dad's other stuff," he explains.

"Is _that_ all?" Nora chirps, rearing Magnhild back. Ren catches the head of the hammer in both hands to dissuade her from swinging.

"Then what have you been training with?" Pyrrha asks curiously.

Flushing hot with shame, Jaune scuffs his shoe on the wooden floors. "I've been using an old pitchfork," he confesses. "And the lid of our compost bin."

His team doesn't say anything right away, so Jaune forces himself to look up and meet their eyes. He's not sure what kind of rejection he was anticipating, but the proud look on Pyrrha's face is anything but disappointed.

"You're not...upset?" he chances.

That startles Pyrrha. "Why would I be upset? It offers good resistance, right? And the lid is heavy, like your shield?"

"I weigh it down with rocks sometimes," Jaune says, still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Pyrrha smiles and nods. Ren raises a brow. Nora rests her hammer across both shoulders and looks at him weird.

"Jaune...why did you think that would make us mad?"

"Not _mad_ , just... " Jaune gestures to the three of them aimlessly, and then it all tumbles out. "You've all got custom weapons and real hunting clothes and just, you guys are amazing at fighting! Meanwhile I can't even practice terribly with gear that isn't mine..."

"Don't say that," Pyrrha interrupts. Her expression is placating: pointed but not stern. "I practiced with a wooden sword and shield for two years before my trainer even let me hold a rifle. And I started with an air-propelled one at that."

Jaune blinks at her. "Really?"

"Ren and I started with even _less!_ " Nora says, rolling her eyes with a smile. "We would've _killed_ for a barn and something to swing around that we didn't have to dumpster-dive for and assemble ourselves. Right?" She nudges her partner's hip with her own.

"We all start somewhere," Ren agrees, bumping Nora right back.

Pyrrha reaches for his hand, and Jaune gives it to her without a second thought.

"You found a way to make it work. Just like we all did," she says. "We just started earlier. That's all."

At a loss, Jaune stares at the floor again, deciding whether he's more mortified by this rather obvious revelation or by his previous embarrassment. When Pyrrha gives his hand a squeeze though, he can't resist a smile.

"Go get your hoodie," Pyrrha instructs, lifting her other hand. The fuzz of her Semblance glows for a second, then his father's office door clicks open. "We'll get your stuff."

* * *

Jaune jogs out to the barn, back in his hoodie, gloves, favorite jeans and worn sneakers. His heart feels lighter, impossibly so. He finds Nora doing flip tricks with his preferred pitchfork. Ren is leaning against the stairs to the hayloft. Pyrrha is standing beside him, holding Jaune's pieces of armor and Crocea Mors.

"I didn't realize it was part of an entire suit of armor," she says as Jaune takes the chest plate from her, weighing it happily in his hands before fastening it on.

"Oh, yeah, it's a whole set," Jaune says, snatching up the shoulder guards to fasten into place. "Everything else looked really uncomfortable so I only grabbed the stuff that would keep me from dying."

"The helmet would have helped during initiation," Ren remarks. Jaune ignores him, grinning stupidly wide when he finishes with his other shoulder guard and Pyrrha presents him with Crocea Mors.

He hugs the sword to his chest, clinking it against his armor pieces. He kisses the handle and coos, "I missed you so much, baby."

"Dork," Nora calls over, catching the pitchfork out of the air and planting it firmly in a hay bale.

Jaune draws out the blade, opens his shield with a satisfying accordion of metal.

"Alright, captain. What's first?" Ren asks, pushing off the column.

"Geez, I don't know." Jaune says, looking between the three of them. "What do _you_ guys want to do?"

"Show off!" Nora says, at the same time Ren suggests, "Training forms."

Jaune looks over at Pyrrha for the tie-breaker.

"How about our team combos?" Pyrrha suggests after a moment of thought. "Since we have you here, we might as well take advantage."

"Great! _Knight Storm_ first," Nora announces, aiming her grenade launcher at Crocea Mors. Jaune ducks behind his shield.

"Warmups first!" he shouts, frantic. Being at the receiving end of Magnhild was never fun. He hears Nora pout and peeks over the edge of his shield as she lowers her weapon. "And quiet combos. My family is still asleep in the house."

Ren drops the clips out from Stormflower and Pyrrha empties out the bullets from Milo. Nora grumbles as she sets aside her grenades. The disappointment is only momentary. In the blink of an eye, she's off to the races. _Knight Storm_ requires the grenade launcher. _Thunderstruck_ just requires Nora's Semblance. Much to the chagrin of Jaune's burnt hair ends and his view of the barn roof from the ground.

"Gotta build your tolerance back up, boss man," Nora chirps.

Jaune moans and Pyrrha kindly offers him a hand up. He gently waves her off. With his weapons still in hand, he kicks-up back to a standing position. His landing wobbles with the extra weight of his armor.

Pyrrha beams at him. "I know I didn't teach you _that_."

"That's 'cause you never fall down," Jaune jokes, twirling Crocea Mors in one hand — another trick he learned from following the rabbit hole of Pyrrha's training tutorials. A sword and pitchfork have different balances, though, and Jaune ends up accidentally flicking it at Ren.

They practice late into the night. Jaune gets the best workout he's gotten since his Ursa run-in and the best training since leaving Beacon. They run drills and combos and Jaune's "garbage" formations. Ren taps out early, to no one's surprise, and Nora accompanies him to bed when he refuses to leave without her. Jaune watches them go as he takes a break to stretch.

"Hey, Pyr? Nothing's...happened with Ren and Nora since I left, has it?"

Pyrrha stops her transformation drills with Milo in-between sword and rifle. She glances over at Jaune. "No, I don't believe so. They're the same as they've always been."

Jaune watches out the barn door as teeny-tiny Nora gives Ren a piggyback ride the rest of the way to the house. "For real?"

"For real," Pyrrha promises.

Jaune shrugs and rolls out his shoulders. "Just my eyes then."

Pyrrha finishes shifting her weapon into a short sword and taps it against her shield in invitation. She smiles in anticipation of Jaune's reluctance. "Simple strikes and parries, I promise."

"Don't go easy on me now, coach," Jaune says, grinning. He collects Crocea Mors and takes a ready stance across from Pyrrha. "I'll have you know, some of the scarecrows I fought were black belts."

Pyrrha most definitely goes easy on him. He uses his environment to his advantage — hopping across hay bales, lunging for his pitchfork to deflect a blow when Pyrrha knocks Crocea Mors out of his hands — and he beats his personal record by landing a grand total of six hits on her. As he sweeps up Crocea Mors, Pyrrha teases him about changing weapons; he quips that the niche of hunters with cool three-pronged weapons is already occupied by Neptune Vasilias, then ducks under her answering swing.

Their match ends what feels like an eon later with Pyrrha pinning him into a corner, her sword at his collarbone as the scroll in his pocket flashes its Low Aura warning.

"That was wonderful, Jaune!" she says proudly, taking a few steps back as Jaune slides down to the floor, spent and panting.

"But I didn't… do anything…"

"You never asked to stop. Not once."

"...Oh," Jaune says. He struggles to stand and takes Pyrrha's offered hand. "Not aloud anyway."

Pyrrha laughs, returning her weapons to her back. "Really, Jaune. Don't sell yourself short."

"I can't." He grins lopsidedly. "You won't let me."

Flushed from the exercise, she puts her hands on her hips. "How are you feeling?"

"A little hot," he admits. "I haven't trained in the armor in a few months." He pushes back his sweaty bangs with a little laugh. "Was there anything else you wanted to do before we called it a night?"

Pyrrha assesses him. Jaune tries to look less exhausted than he really is so she won't feel the need to tap out for his sake. He's pretty sure Pyrrha hasn't even broken a sweat.

"We could… Could we try, um..." she trails off sheepishly. "Ruby says that you were designing a team move for us before you left?"

"Arkos?" Jaune says. Pyrrha nods. Jaune fidgets with his weapons, blushing. "Oh, uh, sure. I never really worked out the kinks in it, but we could give it a shot?"

Pyrrha smiles. "I'd love to."

Jaune talks her through the idea: a shield-to-shield front-flip aerial launch. He draws a diagram in the dirt, and Pyrrha nods along as he explains, offering practical suggestions and making sure the moves are defined clearly. When they've reviewed the physics to death, he suggests they give it a try. Pyrrha sets up at the far end of the barn while Jaune readies himself in the middle. He braces his shield and gives Pyrrha the signal. She sprints at him.

She must come in too high or too fast, because when their shields collide, Crocea Mors bounces back to slam Jaune in the face, and both he and Pyrrha go skidding across the barn floor.

"It's okay. I'm okay," Jaune says over Pyrrha's frantic apologies. He massages his nose tenderly. "I've got a chronic case of dumbass, but I'm fine. I promise."

Pyrrha gingerly pulls his hand away from his face and crouches over him, looking between his eyes. She leans in so close, Jaune swears he can count the individual flecks of green in her irises.

"Your pupils seem to be dilating fine," she says in relief, sitting back on her heels.

"Oh, good," he jokes. "Concussion averted."

Pyrrha helps him sit up. "We should have waited until your aura recovered, Jaune, I'm so sorry."

He chuckles awkwardly and rubs his neck. "I guess Arkos still needs more work, huh?"

Pyrrha smiles apologetically. "I'm sure we'll get it one day."

"I'm sure we will..." A yawn interrupts him.

Pyrrha eyes him knowingly. She stands. "Shall we call it a night?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Jaune agrees grandly, standing as well.

Out of the blue, Jaune's scroll goes off, cutting through the pleasant silence and making them jump. He fishes it out of his pocket and finds Ruby's face on the screen.

Jaune exchanges a look with Pyrrha. It's almost dawn; Ruby never got up before noon if she could help it.

He answers the scroll and puts it on speaker. "Hello?"

The only answer is loud garbled static.

"Rubes?" Jaune asks, louder.

The cut calls off abruptly. Jaune calls back, but it goes straight to voicemail. Pyrrha retrieves her scroll from her pouch and tries as well. No response.

"What mission was RWBY assigned to?" Jaune asks.

Pyrrha frowns at her phone, then looks at Jaune nervously. "Something about saving the world."

* * *

Pacing his bedroom back and forth, Jaune dials Ruby again. No answer.

"You don't think...anything's happened, do you?" Pyrrha asks as she shoots Blake a message.

"Probably a butt dial," Nora suggests cheerily, still wide awake. "I do those _all_ the time."

Jaune pivots and walks across the length of the room again, this time dialing Weiss. No answer.

"It's exceptionally early," Ren says, tracing Jaune's movements with the one eye he's managed to pry open. "They could be sleeping."

Jaune makes another turn, his finger over Yang's glowing contact photo, when Pyrrha catches him by the shoulder. "Talk to us, Jaune."

"I just got this feeling…" he mumbles, staring at the scroll. "It's stupid, I know, but it feels… Well, why would she call me? If she needed JNPR, she'd call you, right? If it was serious, she wouldn't call me. ...right? Unless…"

He looks each of his teammates in the face, chewing his lip. The answer floats between them. Unless Ruby knew his team was with him. Unless she knew that his town was closer to Beacon than whatever outskirts Ruby was assigned to.

Ren sits up in Amarilla's bed. "I'll call a car."

Team JNPR moves like clockwork. Nora and Ren re-dress in their gear; Pyrrha packs everyone's bags; Jaune sneaks downstairs to grab everyone some food for the trip. They all meet at the front door as the first light of dawn starts to creep over the horizon and a very sleepy taxi driver pulls up in the Arc's driveway.

"There's some leftovers from last night in here, but I added some chips in case...you..."

He stops at the sight of his own duffel bag over Ren's shoulder, the handle of Crocea Mors sticking out where the zipper won't close. His teammates are watching him, expectant.

Jaune feels his heart swelling and sinking at the same time. "Guys—"

They all start talking at once.

"We don't know what's waiting for us back at Beacon. We could use the extra backup—"

"—don't want you because you're good or bad, we want you because you're _you_ and we—"

"—and Pyrrha can duplicate Crocea Mores, and we'd be gone before anyone wakes up, and we could still make it to Vale to kick butt—"

Jaune holds up both hands to brace himself from the onslaught and keep them from waking his family. When they trail off, Jaune shuffles from foot to foot and stares at the door frame.

"I can't," he says softly, "you know I can't."

Pyrrha steps towards him, reaching, but Jaune steps back.

"I'm not good enough, Pyrrha."

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't _try_ ," she says. She plants herself in front of him, overflowing with that same determination he saw at the foot at the airship.

Jaune's laugh is hollow. "I'm trying to keep you safe. I'm trying to keep myself from being a liability. Is that not trying enough?"

Ren and Nora are staring at him, pleading, and Pyrrha looks like a Beowulf couldn't knock her over if it came at her full speed and Jaune's heart is breaking all over again that he can't be what they need him to be.

"What do you want, Jaune?" Pyrrha says softly. "Stop thinking about us, what do you want?"

Wordlessly, Jaune glances down at the scroll in his hands, still open to the recent calls list. Ruby's face, bright and eager, smiles up at him. He looks at the closed door leading out back to the barn.

"I...I want to be a hunter," he whispers. It's the first time he's said it to himself in a long time. He hadn't been able to get the words out with his dad and he hadn't been able to say them to his reflection since returning home. Saying them now, with his team, feels like he's thrown a stone through a glass window. His arm shakes as he clenches the scroll in his hands. "But I can't—"

"Jaune—"

"I can't run away again."

He surprises himself with the steadiness of his voice. He looks back into Pyrrha's face, into Ren and Nora's, and tries to turn the thrumming feeling in his chest into words. "I'm going to do it right, guys. I can't keep pretending to be someone that I'm not, and I'm not...I'm not happy." That's the first time he's said that out loud. "I'm not the world's most amazing hunter; I'm not good enough to keep up." He puts on his most determined look. "But I'm going to keep training. I'm going to study my ass off. And when Beacon applications open for next semester, Ozpin's gonna find my name at the top of the pile for your partner auditions, Pyrrha."

Pyrrha's steadiness dissolves into something close to hesitation. She tries another step closer and this time, Jaune stands his ground. She's eye to eye with him as she says, "You know you don't have to prove yourself to Ozpin. Or your father or to us."

" _Especially_ not to us," Nora emphasizes, completely serious.

Jaune smiles, bittersweet. "But I have to prove it to myself, Nora. I have to prove I can do it on my own, just like you did. I want to do right by the Arc name. Besides," the smile turns genuine, "I wouldn't miss the look on Cardin's face when I walk back into class for the _world_. "

Ren is frowning ever so slightly. "You're sure this is what you want?"

Jaune nods. "It is."

"You could do all that training with us knocking you around instead of some boring scarecrows, you know," Nora suggests, but she's smiling.

"You underestimate scarecrows."

Pyrrha looks between him, Ren and Nora, and the car outside. She clasps her hands at her waist. "There's nothing we can do to change your mind?"

Briefly, Jaune hesitates. For a moment, he pictures going back to late-night training in the barn with a pitchfork on his own. He pictures the stares at school and the hounding he is no doubt going to receive in triplicate because of his outing with his team. He remembers his father's cool stare and almost changes his mind on the spot, almost runs to the taxi in a jolt of impulsiveness.

The moment passes. Jaune shakes his head.

"I'm going to do this right, Pyrrha." He notices the chain on her diadem has gotten twisted with her hair and reaches up to fix it. "No one's gonna be able to say it was just luck."

His hand falls to her shoulder, and that, at last, coaxes a smile from Pyrrha.

Ren hands Jaune back his bag with an amused look. "You are aware next semester applications open in a month, yes?"

Jaune stills in adjusting the bag over his shoulder. "Uh ...I did not."

Nora smacks his arm. "Well go get training, slowpoke! No time to waste!"

The taxi drivers honks once, short and loud, and JNPR spins around to shush him before he wakes the Arcs. Nora lifts Jaune off the ground in a bear hug, then waits for Ren to give Jaune a squeeze before following him out to the car, leaving Jaune with Pyrrha as she nimbly digs through her bag.

He huffs a little laugh as he watches them leave. "It's not the daring escape from Casa Arc that Nora was probably hoping for, but—"

In the blink of an eye, Pyrrha has pulled something from her bag and pressed it into his hand. Uncurling his fist, Jaune's heart skips a beat.

"Pyrrha...Pyr, I can't take these," he stammers in disbelief.

He pushes the two Vytal Festival tickets back at her, but Pyrrha won't take them. "Yes, you can."

"But— But your family in Mistral! They'll want to—"

"Jaune." Pyrrha reaches for his hand and folds his fingers over the tickets. She stays there, holding his hand in both of hers. "You're the only person I want there."

The warmth of Pyrrha's hands chases the argument right from his head. He knows the moment she pulls away, he's going to miss her desperately, so he puts his other hand over hers to keep her just a little longer. Pyrrha squeezes his hands reassuringly and Jaune squeezes back.

"I won't disappoint," he promises.

Pyrrha smiles and, almost too swiftly for him to realize it's happened, pecks him on the cheek.

Then she's pulling back, her fingers slipping from his as she turns and all but sprints to the car to keep the sleepy taxi driver from honking again. She isn't even ten paces away and already Jaune aches. A voice in the back of his head whispers that he's made the wrong decision, that it's not too late to run after her.

As Pyrrha slips into the passenger seat of the car, Jaune can't fully see her. But he hears Ren when he rolls down the window and says, "We look forward to reviewing your application, Jaune."

"Kick serious ass!" Nora whisper-shouts at him.

The car pulls away with his team quietly shouting their goodbyes at him. The sun peeks over the trees in the distance, bathing the landscape in a harsh orange as the car rolls down the Arcs driveway and down the road to the airship dock. Jaune stands at his front door, pack still over one shoulder, watching the car until he can't see it anymore.

It dawns on him that he's either just made the smartest or stupidest decision of his life and can't tell which it was.

His body, mind, and heart all feel like they'd been used as a chew toy for an Ursa Major, though, so the deep thoughts will have to wait. Trudging back inside, he puts the tickets in his pocket and pulls Crocea Mors from his bag to carry her lovingly over one shoulder. As much as he'd like to pass out in bed, he needed to put his gear back before his dad got up for the morning. He needed to work on his defense to his father as well, but that could wait until he got a couple of hours of sleep before school.

But when Jaune opens the door to his father's study, he freezes.

His father is awake and reading at his desk. He glances up at Jaune's arrival, looking about as startled to see his son as Jaune is to see him. Feeling his stomach bottom out, Jaune glances down at the mud and hay covering his great-grandfather's armor, at the new scratches in Crocea Mors from where they'd come into brutal contact with Milo and Acouo. His mind spinning, he scrambles for words to defend himself, to dissuade this horrible revelation.

Mr. Arc takes the reading glasses off his face slowly, schooling his face into an expectant look.

Jaune opens his mouth, his jaw trembling, then closes it when no words come. His hand is a vice around the handle of Crocea, as if his very body is already refusing to relinquish the weapon. He feels paralyzed and hates himself.

Mr. Arc closes his book and stands. Quietly, he walks over to the presentation case in the corner with his hands clasped behind his back. He stares at the glaringly obvious missing pieces in the suit of armor and refuses to look back at Jaune.

"After the last time the armor was…stolen," he says, resting on the word enough that Jaune feels the shame bubble up to his throat, "I had a silent alarm installed. It's linked directly to my scroll."

Jaune swallows hard. He gulps and stutters, "Dad—"

"Crystal's father said something interesting to me the other day as well," Mr. Arc continues conversationally. "Said that his daughter and her friend had a run-in with an Ursa earlier this semester. It could have been very messy, if their glory-hound of a classmate hadn't attempted to fight the Ursa single-handedly."

The word comes out softer now, escaping Jaune in a broken sound. "Dad…"

"Well?" Mr. Arc asks. Jaune can't find anything else to say. When several minutes go by in silence, Mr. Arc raises his voice without turning. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

God, Jaune hopes his father can't hear how his armor clinks with how hard he's trying to keep from shaking. He's unprepared and off-balance, but he couldn't get it wrong if it was the truth, right? His team is counting on him. Jaune takes a deep breath.

"I'm a hunter, Dad," he starts, quietly, keeping his gaze firmly on the side of his father's face. "I'm sorry I can't be the son who's happy looking after my family like you want me to be. It's not _me_. I know you think I want it for the fame or the glory or the attention, but— Dad, I want to be a hunter because it's who I am."

His father's voice is monotone. "You are not a hunter, Jaune."

"Yes, I am," Jaune says, louder. "Maybe I'm a terrible hunter now, and maybe I'm a long way from who I can be, but I _am_ a hunter and if you think I'm not then—!"

Crocea Mors drops to his dominant hand as if moving on its own, the sheath unfurling into shield against the brace of his arm guard and his front foot goes forward and his stance widens in challenge.

"Then stop me," he dares. His heart hammers in his ears and adrenaline buzzes in every joint. The practical part of him is fully aware that he's running on zero sleep and a serious beat-down from a four-time tournament champion and that his father has ten times as many years of experience. He refuses to indulge that part. He stands his ground. Ready.

Mr. Arc glances at his son, betraying neither surprise nor humor. He crosses back to his desk, facing away from Jaune and looking up at the empty brass hooks over the fireplace. An outline in dust and soot betrays where the family heirloom is supposed to sit.

"You didn't go with them."

Jaune blinks. Blinks again. "What?"

"You had the perfect opportunity to go with them. You had your weapons. You had their full support and an important mission to help on, and you stayed. Why?"

Jaune's grip on Crocea Mors tightens. "A true hunter stands by the consequences of his actions."

Mr. Arc says nothing. Jaune stays at the ready, heaving in anticipation and not daring to move.

His breath hitches when his father reaches for his weapon.

"She came at you too high, son."

Jaune stares at his father with wide eyes as the older man calmly collects his remaining gear and travel bag from the corner of the room.

"If you're going to launch a six-foot, armor-clad Amazon any kind of distance into the air," Mr. Arc says, "your shields need to connect precisely at your centers of gravity or she's going to decapitate you before the Grimm can."

It takes Jaune embarrassingly long to realize what his father is saying. He almost can't bring himself to chance a smile. "You mean—?"

"You're also not using your aura to your advantage," Mr. Arc continues, gearing up in front of Jaune. "There's no reason you should be putting such effort into an offense. If you can outlast them, let them tire out before moving in." He sighs. "Really, Jaune, I'm going to have a word with Ms. Goodwitch."

Crocea Mors clatters to the ground as Jaune throws his arms around his father, their armor clanking loud against each other.

"Thank you," Jaune chokes out, holding on tight. "I'm going to make you proud."

And for the first time Jaune can ever remember, his father's arms come around him too, patting him reassuringly between the shoulder blades. "I have no doubt."

* * *

Jaune sees his father off on his assignment with the promise that this stays their secret until he can return and talk to his mother. Jaune's heart sings as he takes the stairs back up to his room two at a time. He clears his bedside table to settle his armor in a place of honor and wonders if his sisters will kill him for attempting to hammer some hooks above his bed so early in the morning. He gets into his onesie and sets one of the Vytal Festival tickets on top of his chest plate. The other he sets, very visibly, on top of Amarilla's bedside notebook.

Despite being awake close to 24 hours, Jaune can't fall asleep. He feels like Nora's electrocuted him again. Grinning stupidly wide, Jaune closes his eyes and impatiently waits for the exhaustion to set in.

He can't wait to tell Pyrrha. Honestly, he wishes he could tell her now. But if there was trouble after all in Beacon, Jaune doesn't want to interrupt. If there wasn't trouble, his team was probably catching up on the rest they hadn't gotten spending the night with him. Still, he wants to share this with them. Especially Pyrrha, who will no doubt beam at him and laugh and tell him how silly he was being because of course his father loved him. Of course he deserves a second chance and so much more.

Jaune misses her so much already, it's like there's empty space inside his chest despite the joy. He misses how her hands felt in his as they danced and walked back to the house and said goodbye. He recalls how Pyrrha's eyes creased in worry when she checked him for a concussion and misses that too. He misses how she made fighting look so effortless. He loved the sound of her voice, and her kind advice. He loved Pyrrha's hugs, and Pyrrha's laugh, and Pyrrha's… and Pyrrha.

Jaune's eyes fly open. It drops on him like a shard of the moon.

Oh. _Oh._

* * *

 **Author's Note:** For those of you who found this story on ff and not Ao3, consider yourselves fortunate that I didn't put you through the months of waiting I put my poor Ao3 fans through. The goal now is to finish the final three chapters in two week intervals by the end of April. This'll put me roughly in the 13 month window of when I originally posted this story. Fingers crossed!


	8. Chapter 8

Jaune walks back into school the following morning with such purpose, it takes him two periods to notice the way the crowds of students in the hallways part in front of him like the wrong end of a magnet. When he puzzles as to why he's not getting his typical amount of harassment, Rawaya has to point out to him that his notoriety seems to have peaked with the appearance of his team. Even those who would regularly find him approachable for favors or paparazzi-style questions seem to be staying out of his way upon remembering the hunter friends he'd paraded around for all to see. It's a nice change of pace as it deters almost everyone from talking to him. Almost.

Carnelia slides into the seat beside him at lunch before either Rawaya or Amarilla can find him. Jaune glances up from reviewing notes on his scroll. Passing all of his end-of-semester exams had been one of his father's stipulations for reapplying to Beacon. He was expected to get high marks on every exam so that he looked as capable on paper as he did in person.

"Studying hard?" she asks.

Jaune closes his scroll and sighs. "Hey, Carnelia."

She crosses her legs at the ankle. "Did you hear about the breach?"

Jaune heard about it thirty minutes before the news alerts starting lighting up everyone's scrolls. He'd received a text from Nora saying RWBY was okay but that all hell was breaking loose at Beacon. JNPR had arrived in time with team CFVY and with the professors' help, they'd made short work of the terror attack. Jaune had been glued to his phone since third period.

"Yeah," he says, "I got live updates from my...friend." His heart stutters at the thought of calling them his team again, but he fears jinxing it before it's official.

Carnelia watches him. Jaune sips his juice box and tries not to look her straight in the eye.

"Pyrrha Nikos is really your girlfriend, huh?"

Jaune chokes on his straw. Carnelia does nothing to help as Jaune clears his airway and tries to find words for his mouth.

"She's not...she's, she's _Pyrrha,"_ he splutters, "and she— We're just partners. Were! We _were_ teammates."

He has no idea what to do with the flat stare Carnelia is giving him. "You were at Lanse's place yesterday, right?" she asks. "That's wasn't some Jaune Arc lookalike I saw sitting at the bar all night?"

"Carnelia—"

" _Flirting_ with Pyrrha Nikos. _Dancing_ with Pyrrha Nikos. Ashton's friend said he saw you with your hand on her ass and Crystal—"

" _Carnelia!"_ Jaune wants to die. He wants to spontaneously combust. "I don't— We weren't— I did _not_ touch her...butt." Where was a Grimm breach at his school when he needed it? "Yes, I'm friends with Pyrrha, but we're not… not anything, okay?"

Raising a brow, Carnelia deadpans, "You're not fooling anyone, Jaune."

"I'm not—!" He spots Rawaya and Amarilla walking towards his table with their lunches and waves them over. "Ama, Rawa. Tell Carnelia I'm not…" He drops his voice. "Pyrrha is just a friend."

Amarilla rolls her eyes. "He and Pyrrha Nikos are disgustingly platonic."

Rawaya looks between him and Amarilla and says, "Wait, are you _not_ together-together?"

Betrayed by his own kin, Jaune glares at his sisters. "No, I _was_ not and _am_ not in a relationship with Pyrrha Nikos."

He turns to restate this to Carnelia, but the auburn-haired girl is already standing and sashaying away from Jaune's table, looking too smug for her own good. "Thanks for the clarification, Arc."

Frantic, Jaune turns back to Rawaya and Amarilla. "Why did you say that?! She's going to tell everyone!"

Amarilla looks legitimately confused by her brother's tone. "Is it the worst thing in the world if people think you have a hot, famous girlfriend?"

Jaune gestures to Carnelia's retreating back. "The tabloids will have a field day if she opens her big mouth to someone looking for dirt on Pyrrha! The Vytal Festival is in two weeks!"

Amarilla frowns at this. "You're junior hunters. Do people really care about that?"

With a look of unwavering determination, Rawaya hands her tray of food off to Amarilla, takes a deep breath, and marches over to Carnelia and her table full of friends. Between the distance and his heart hammering in his ears, Jaune doesn't hear what she says. He can only watch from his seat as small, shy Rawaya talks animatedly with the most popular girls and guys in school.

In a few minutes, she's walking back to them and Jaune has to resist the urge to jump up from the table and accost her. Rawaya collapses into her seat, all social energy drained out of her, and drops her forehead to the table. Amarilla helpfully slides her tray of food in front of her.

"What happened? What did you say?" Jaune whispers.

Rawaya groans. "I told her that you and Pyrrha Nikos are dating."

"Rawa, that is the opposite of what I needed you to do!"

"I said it was super duper secret and very hush hush. I might have bluffed that I had Pyrrha Nikos on speed dial. I may have lead Carnelia to believe that if she confirmed the relationship with anyone, I would give a very angry and very lethal Pyrrha Nikos the directions to her house."

Jaune blinks at his sister. "You _threatened_ Carnelia? With _Pyrrha?"_

"I am so sorry," she mumbles into the table.

With a moan, Jaune faceplants into the table himself. "Why didn't you just tell her Pyrrha and I weren't together?"

"She was not going to believe me," Rawaya says, lifting her head to look at Jaune. "I would not believe _myself."_

Amarilla watches Jaune over the rim of her pudding cup. "To be fair, Rawa didn't have much of a chance. Even Lanse thought you were an item, and he's Mr. People Reader."

"Wait," Jaune's head snaps up. "Does the entire school think Pyrrha is my girlfriend?!"

Amarilla makes a seesaw gesture with her hand. Rawaya says, reassuringly, "Only the half that thinks you are cool."

Jaune scrubs a hand across his face and takes three of the deepest breathes he can. Two more weeks of school, he chants to himself. Two weeks then this would all be behind him. He ducks his head back down to resume reviewing his notes. "Thanks for trying, guys."

Jaune spends the next few days studying for exams and practicing every night with Amarilla in the barn — this time with Crocea Mors and his armor — until his father comes home and officially breaks the news to his mother.

It's almost funny how Jaune knows the exact moment that it happens, when his mother comes into his room as he's studying in bed and sits with him. Mrs. Arc says nothing right away. Jaune struggles to concentrate on his notes as the unspoken conversation hangs between them. Then she pulls Jaune into her arms, holding him tight, and makes him promise to stay safe and be smart and come home to her. Hugging his mother back, Jaune promises that he will, whether or not he can keep any such promise.

His father, true to his word, knocks on his door about an hour later and tells him to gear up and meet him in the barn. Mrs. Arc releases him so he can stand and strap on his armor. Tentative, Jaune asks if she'd like to come watch. She takes his face in her hands, smiling sadly, and says next time. She'll need a little while to get used to her son being a hunter like his father. Jaune hugs her one more time before heading out to the barn.

They start with a sparring match so Mr. Arc can assess where his son is in skill level. Jaune is pleasantly surprised to discover that while Pyrrha was indeed going easy on him, she wasn't going _that_ easy on him. That being said, the following week of training with his dad is completely different than anything he'd done with Pyrrha or Goodwich. Mr. Arc gets Jaune thinking about things he'd never considered.

He points out that Jaune fights with Pyrrha's fighting style. It's not a bad technique, Mr. Arc says, but it only works effectively if Jaune has Pyrrha's flexibility and Pyrrha's strike precision. Jaune has the advantage of trusting his upper body strength and his aura more than his partner can, and Mr. Arc shows him how to utilize that. His father drills Jaune on defensive techniques to compliment Pyrrha's more offense-focused style until some of their sparring matches end up with Jaune dancing out of his father's reach for as long as he possibly can without making a single offensive move himself. The training is a hundred times more intense and targeted than anything he ever attempted on his own or at Beacon.

Jaune loves every second of it.

As the semester finishes up, Jaune passes all his classes and makes it through the days with minimal harassment. He tactfully avoids mentioning that he won't be back next semester when Carnelia and Crystal ask what he's doing for the break. When the final bell rings, he waves at them cheerily before departing from school for the last time.

That night, as he heads to the kitchen for some juice, he overhears Amarilla and Flava fighting in the living room. At Jaune's request, Amarilla had only told their parents about the Vytal Festival tickets, but it seems that Flava went into Amarilla's drawers for some makeup and found out. The tickets have been sold out for months and Flava is trying to buy or bargain the ticket from Amarilla with the argument that the younger Arc was going for enjoyment, while Flava had a laundry list of career connections she could be making with those in attendance.

Jaune sighs from his spot out-of-sight on the stairs. He'd already been feeling guilty about only being able to bring Amarilla along, especially after what Rawaya had done for him with Carnelia. But, then again, Flava had let him use her scroll and break grounding when Pyrrha was trying to reach him, and Gia had kept quiet about the Ursa incident and gotten him back his own scroll. In their own ways, they'd _all_ helped. Jaune sends Pyrrha a text message, lamenting that he couldn't bring all his sisters to the Vytal Festival. Could she ask around if any of their classmates didn't use both their tickets to friends and family? Did anyone have a spare he could have?

The next day, an overnight envelope arrives at the front door addressed to Jaune. There are four tickets inside, two with Nora's name and two with Ren's, and a handwritten note. It says: _If you send these back, I'll break your legs._

He pins one ticket to Rawaya's poster wall and puts the second one under the paperweight holding down Flava's job applications. He puts the remaining two on Gia's pillow, right beside the calendar indicating her six month anniversary landed only three days short of the Vytal Festival.

Jaune texts his thanks to Ren and Nora, but his fingers hesitate over Pyrrha's glowing face.

He'd been messaging Pyrrha regularly, or at least _as_ regularly as he had before she'd come visit. It was nice not having to text her in the dead of night anymore, and he could call or video chat without having to worry about getting caught. And yet…

Every time he even _thought_ about talking to her, his heart did this soaring loop that never used to happen. When he imagined her face close to his, his hands got clammy. He tried to call her once to tell her about the latest developments in _X-Ray and Vav_ and found himself rehearsing what he was going to say before she picked up. Then, feeling self-conscious and stupid, he hastily hung up and quickly sent a message apologizing for the butt dial. As soon as Pyrrha was reassured through text, Jaune crawled under his bed with his pillow and screamed into it.

What was _wrong_ with him? He loved Pyrrha like he loved Nora and Ren and all his sisters. He didn't care that she was beautiful and brave and talented and kind and brilliant. Well, he _did_ care, but he never liked her _because_ of it. He liked her because all those things made her _Pyrrha_. He liked her because...he _liked_ her. Oh no, he _liked her-_ liked her.

He was going to see her in less than a week, what was he going to _do?!_ Pyrrha knew him better than anyone. She'd know the moment she saw him that something was up. Would she think he was obsessed just like all those fans that put her posters up on their walls and hounded her for autographs when she got out of taxis? He was going to make everything awkward and awful just when he got her back.

Jaune makes a dying animal noise from where he's balled up under his sheets. Amarilla comes over to pet his hip.

"There there," she says. "Only a few more days until you're back at your elite hunting school with four of your sisters in tow to humiliate you."

Another distressed noise comes from under the sheets.

* * *

Finally, the morning of the first day of the Vytal Festival arrives.

The airship is late.

Jaune paces the port, willing the ship to arrive faster. All around him are others on their way for the festivities in Vale, chatting with each other about their favorite teams and the upcoming matchups.

Gia's metalsmith boyfriend, Rusty, watches Jaune do laps at a speed-walk. "Do you wanna sit down, man?"

Flava rolls her eyes. "Leave him. He'll tire out."

Rawaya balances the dozen posters she's made and bound with twine under one arm as she checks the time on her scroll nervously. "Will we miss the first matchup?"

Jaune clenches and unclenches his fists as he walks. "We can't! The first matchup is RWBY vs ABRN, we've got to be there!"

Gia and Amarilla walk back from having talked to the station master. Gia sits next to Rusty and says, "It should be here soon. They had to gas up."

"Jaune," Amarilla says, snapping in his face to get him to stop moving. "Relax. You're making the rest of us nervous."

"We're gonna be _late_ ," he frets. He grabs his sister by the shoulders. "What if we miss RWBY? JNPR is right after, I can't miss my own team!"

Someone on the port points up to the sky with a cheer and Jaune whirls around to see the ship coming in for a landing. He sprints to the front of the boarding line. The airship ride is worse than usual. Between his regular airsickness and the worries about missing the matchup and the nerves about seeing Pyrrha again, Jaune spends the entire trip hunched over a garbage bin. They don't land nearly soon enough; the airship arrives at Amity Colosseum just as team RWBY is being announced.

"I'll meet up with you at the hotel!" Jaune calls over his shoulder, rushing towards the stands despite what the action does to his already out-of-control vertigo. Rawaya and Amarilla follow him close behind.

The stadium is packed, but they find an aisle with a decent view. Jaune is unable to immediately appreciate it. As soon as he's sitting, Amarilla forces his head between his knees with instructions to stay down until his vision stops swimming.

Rawaya unfurls her Team RWBY sign and between their commentary and the booming voices of Port and Oobleck, Jaune gets a very clear picture of the action until he can finally lift his head. Then he's cheering on his friends with more gusto than anyone around them. He isn't even a little surprised when RWBY soundly defeats their challengers.

Once the fanfare has died down and the teams have left the arena, the colosseum starts to turn over for the next competition and Jaune stands up.

"Where are you going?" Rawaya asks. "Your team is up next and we have great seats."

"They're on in a hour," Jaune corrects. "I want to see them before and wish them luck."

"Don't wish them _too_ much luck," Amarilla says teasingly as Jaune leaves. He has no idea what she's talking about.

He sends a text to their group chat. Nora texts back that they're grabbing a quick lunch with RWBY. Grinning from ear to ear, Jaune says he's on his way.

Between catching the shuttle to the fairgrounds and trying to be sneaky as to not to give away the surprise too soon, Jaune spots the designated noodle booth just as RWBY and JNPR are halfway through their bowls. RWBY are all sitting in a line and facing away from his approach.

"I think we did rather well, all things considered," he hears Weiss saying.

"Psh, what fight were _you_ watching," Yang jokes. "We were amazing!"

Ruby thrusts her chopsticks up in the air. "Another flawless victory for Team RWBY!"

Jaune calls, "I don't know about _flawless._ I think I saw two of Yang's hairs out of place."

In the blink of an eye, he's knocked off his feet with the force of Ruby's tackle-hug. The momentum sends them skidding across the fairgrounds, to the startled sounds of various festival patrons, until they come to a stop against a weaponsmith's booth.

"Jaune! You're here! You're back! You came back!" Ruby squeals, squeezing his midsection. She scrambles upright to sit on his legs. "Did you see our match?!"

Flat on his back, it takes Jaune a moment to shake off the disorientation and catch his breath. Then he's smiling so wide it hurts his face. "Did I see you?" Jaune teases. "Did I see you use a _four-person team move_ to win by hat trick?!"

"Wasn't it _amazing?"_ Ruby preens. "We only practiced that move once! It doesn't even have a name yet! I was thinking _Ice Wave,_ but that really doesn't do justice to everyone's contributions."

Jaune sits up. _"Right Hook Tsunami?"_

Ruby coos, "Ooooh, I like that one! I was also considering—"

"Alright, alright," Yang laughs, lifting Ruby off of Jaune by her cape. "Let the rest of us get in."

Yang plunks her sister down back on her feet and offers Jaune a hand up.

"Hey, Yang, it's great to—"

The brawler yanks him into a bear hug. "Welcome back, Vomit Boy! Airship rides just haven't been the same without you."

Over the sound of his spine cracking, Jaune wheezes, "Missed you too," and waves at a deeply amused Blake over Yang's shoulder.

As Yang sets him down, Weiss walks over, both hands on her hips, her expression critical. "Do your parents know you're here?"

Jaune dusts himself off and pulls his festival ticket out of his pocket. "I got the full endorsement."

"Oh." She sounds genuinely surprised. "So...you got your family issue sorted out?"

Jaune rubs the back of his neck. "Took a while, but yeah."

Weiss huffs. "It usually does."

"They didn't think I was hunter material," Jaune says with a shy smile. "Imagine that."

He doesn't expect Weiss to mirror the smile. He's even less prepared when, after a brief hesitation, she offers him her hand. "Welcome back to the madness, Arc. You should have escaped while you had the chance."

Jaune shakes her hand after a beat. He realizes he's been given a _perfect_ opportunity to flirt. Weiss is looking as beautiful as ever and she's being nice! Teasing him, even. He opens his mouth to compliment her on her earrings or her dress, but all the clever things that used to come so easily to him around Weiss are suddenly nowhere to be found. His heart should be fluttering; his words should be tumbling. But none of it is happening. All he wants to do is say thank you and perhaps marvel at the oddity that family disappointment is something they seem to have in common. It's the strangest thing.

"Wait, so does that mean...?" Ruby looks between Jaune and her teammates. "Are you back to stay?"

"That depends how I do on the entrance exam. But if it all goes well…" Jaune shrugs and smiles.

She cheers. "This is _great!_ It'll be just like our first semester! RWBY and JNPR back together again! Taking on the—" Ruby freezes. She gasps and whirls around to Jaune's teammates, all of whom are still sitting at the noodle booth. "You _knew_ he was coming!"

Nora smirks. "Maaaaaaybe."

Ren shrugs. "Surprise."

Pyrrha is occupied by her food, but her shoulders shake with quiet laughter.

"Have you have lunch?" Blake asks him. "It's on Pyrrha."

Before Jaune can answer, Ruby and Yang are dragging him by each arm in the direction of the noodle booth. They deposit him into the corner seat between Yang and Pyrrha before resuming their own lunches.

"Long time no see," Jaune says to his team.

Ren rolls his eyes good-naturedly. Nora reaches across Pyrrha to smack his arm.

Pyrrha giggles and finishes her mouthful of noodles to smile at him. "Long time, indeed."

She's got some broth at the corner of her lips. Normally, Jaune would mention it or reflexively brush it off himself with a napkin. It's what he _should_ be doing instead of staring intently at her mouth.

Pyrrha flushes pink, holding up a hand to her face. "Do I have something in my teeth?"

"Yes," Jaune says quickly. "Just a little— Uh, here." He reaches for the jar of water in the corner of the booth to refill her cup — and knocks it over into the booth with a soggy crash of glass on astroturf.

Yang snorts and calls him Butterfingers. Pyrrha blinks at him.

"I'll have what she's having," Jaune tells the glaring shopkeep, pointing to Pyrrha's bowl and desperately hoping no one heard his voice squeak.

Team RWBY is more than willing to distract him from his self-sabotage with stories. Blake and Yang catch him up on the full details of the breach, while Ruby teases him mercilessly about his Pumpkin Pete's hoodie. Jaune sheepishly explains that with all her good intentions, his mother talked him out of bringing his armor or Crocea Mors. She made him promise he'd be strictly civilian for the festival. As they talk and eat, Jaune's seating placement makes it easy to catch up with everyone. Jaune tries to address his team a normal amount, especially as Nora excitedly includes their own contributions to stopping the breach, but every time he looks their way, the first thing he sees his Pyrrha, and his heart does this _thump-thump_ so loud, he's sure the whole fairgrounds can hear it.

Jaune nervously scarfs down his noodle bowl and ends up sprawled over the counter with a stomach ache as the rest of them finish eating. Ruby asks the competing members of JNPR if they're ready for their fight.

Nora scoffs proudly. "Of course! Look at us! We're a tournament champion, a ninja, and I'm the physical embodiment of that saying about amazing things coming in small packages! Besides," she points over at Jaune, "we've got the best moral support any team could ask for!"

He gives her a weak thumbs up and does his best to moan quietly. Nora goes on about winning and losing prospects, but Jaune tunes her out in an attempt to quell his nausea. Maybe he shouldn't have eaten so much after spending most of the last two hours puking on an upset stomach. He feels a comforting hand rub up and down his back. It takes him a moment to abruptly realize that it's Pyrrha's.

Jaune bolts to his feet like a startled cat, knocking his chair over backwards and bringing whatever Weiss was saying to an awkward stop.

"Oh, gosh, is that the time?" Jaune rambles, digging frantically for his scroll as his friends all stare at him. "Aren't you guys due on any minute now?"

As if on cue, Port and Oobleck's voices crackle out over the intercom system requesting their presence in the arena.

The members of RWBY wish JNPR the best of luck. Nora stands, salutes Team RWBY and punches Jaune in the shoulder, before turning to head for the airship docks with Ren in tow. Pyrrha stands as well, but hesitates at Jaune's elbow.

"Are you alright?"

Jaune shoves his hands in his pockets and leans his hip against the tabletop in a desperate attempt to look casual. "I'm perfect! I'm fine! Just a little stomach ache from the flight. Don't worry about me."

"Just a stomach ache?" Pyrrha asks tentatively.

"Yeah! You know me. Me in ships." He laughs a little too loudly.

Pyrrha looks him up and down and rubs her arm. "Alright...if you're sure…"

Jaune screams at himself to get it together. His team is about to compete for the first time in a tournament setting. The last thing Pyrrha needs is to be distracted with the worry that Jaune has lost the ability to function like a normal person.

"Okay, maybe I'm...nervous," he mumbles. "Four versus three doesn't seem very fair. I wish I could be out there with you guys."

"You _are_ here." Pyrrha glances down and smooths out the invisible creases on her skirt. "It means a lot that you came."

"Well, you mean a lot to me," Jaune says, feeling the heat crawl up his face. "All of you. You're going to do great."

Pyrrha smiles at him just as the intercom overhead crackles back to life.

 _"While we appreciate the flair for the dramatic here at Beacon,"_ Dr. Oobleck's voice rings out, _"any minute now that Team JNPR can make an appearance would be greatly beneficial to the blood pressure of all of us here in the booth."_

"Knock 'em dead!" Jaune blurts and gives Pyrrha a quick hug, then trots a few steps back. "I'm gonna—" he points to the colosseum, "with my sisters. Look for me in the audience, okay? I'll meet up with you guys after."

Pyrrha smiles at him a little wider, then nods before jogging after Ren and Nora.

Jaune turns back to Team RWBY, to ask if they should go, and finds that Blake has leapt across the table to clamp both her hands over Yang's unnervingly gleeful smile. Weiss is staring at Jaune a little like Carnelia did when she hardly recognized him. Ruby is the only one that looks as confused as he does.

"Are we...going up?" Jaune asks.

"Yes," Blake says, very firmly, as she struggles to keep Yang shut up. "Tell your sisters they can sit with us."

Jaune does precisely that. Amarilla and Rawaya come down to the student section and introduce themselves to Team RWBY. Well, Jaune has to introduce Rawaya as she seems incapable of talking or making eye contact. The seven of them get front row seats to the action. Jaune sits next to Amarilla and watches in confusion as Blake all but wrestles Yang out of the seat to his left.

"Aw, come on!" Yang whines. "Like you aren't dying to know!"

"Let him support his team in peace," Blake says calmly, settling in next to Jaune with a bowl of popcorn. "You have the rest of the festival to interrogate him."

Yang points to her own eyes and then to Jaune's as she sits between her sister and Weiss. Jaune gives Blake a bewildered look. She shrugs at him unhelpfully.

As the announcers start hyping up the crowd, Jaune feels boots prop up over the back of his chair. A blonde monkey's tail swipes a handful of popcorn from Blake's bowl, and Jaune turns in his seat to find Sun and Neptune getting comfortable in the row behind them.

"'Sup, Arc? Heard you were back," Sun says, tossing popcorn into his mouth.

"Yeah, hey," Jaune greets. He'd met Sun once, right before he had to leave last semester. While Sun had _certainly_ left an impression, Jaune hadn't thought it had been mutual. "You...heard I was back?"

"Like two minutes ago," Sun explains. Blake swats his tail away when he tries for a second grab of popcorn. "We can't get any of these girls to shut up about you, man. How do you do it?"

"No, seriously," Neptune says, lowering his feet from the top of Jaune's chair and leaning forward to whisper, _"tell us how."_

Weiss scoffs loudly and waves a dismissive hand in Neptune's direction. "Jaune, this is Neptune Vasilias."

Politely overlooking Weiss's icy tone and Neptune's wince, Jaune attempts a cheery sounding, "Nice to meet you. These are my sisters, Amarilla and—"

Rawaya stands straight as a board, pivots, and flees from the area as fast as she possibly can. Sun and Neptune exchange a puzzled look.

Amarilla smiles sweetly at them. "She's a fan."

"Gah! They're coming out!" Ruby squeals as the announcers introduce Team JNPR. She rushes over to swipe up Rawaya's poster and the group of them all stand and cheer. From the arena, Nora, Ren, and Pyrrha turn their way and wave. No one cheers louder than Jaune.

* * *

Jaune sits on his former mattress, recapping the fight with his team after their close match with Team BRNZ. Despite Pyrrha's reassurances, Jaune can't help feeling the match would have gone smoother had there been a fourth team member taking care of BRNZ's sniper. They'd won, narrowly, and mostly because Nora had gotten herself so loaded up on electricity that Ren was currently lighting candles in their dorm room to dispel the lingering scent of ozone. Pyrrha strips out of her plate armor as they talk and Jaune takes the opportunity to analyze the new stains in their carpet. She apologizes as she excuses herself from the conversation and heads out for a quick shower, closing the door firmly behind her.

Before Ren can follow her out to shower himself, Jaune vaults over the beds, slaps Nora's headphones over her ears, and grabs Ren by the shoulders, shaking him hard.

"Ren, I need your help!"

A confused and slightly scared Ren nods slowly. "O...kay?"

"I need advice," Jaune says. "On...on girls."

Ren stares at him "...girls?"

"Yeah, I mean...you and Nora have been…" He glances over to make sure Nora's headphones are on securely. She seems to be enjoying whatever is playing on them. He turns back to Ren. "Okay, well, I don't _know_ if there's a name for what you and Nora are, but whatever you're doing, you're doing it better than I can and… I just don't... girls..." Jaune trails off, running a hand through his hair.

"What _about_ girls?" Ren asks cautiously.

Jaune sighs, plopping down to sit next to Ren. "How...how can you tell if a girl likes you?"

Ren sets a hand on Jaune's shoulder decisively. "Jaune, Weiss does not like you."

Flustered, Jaune stammers, "Not Weiss! Look, just— I— Nevermind. It was a stupid idea."

Ren shrugs. "Alright."

Jaune says nothing and neither does Ren. They sit in silence for a long while, listening to the dull music coming out of Nora's headphones. Finally, Jaune realizes that he's playing a losing game trying to outlast _Ren_ of all people. He groans, mortified, and buries his face in his hands so he doesn't have to look at his teammate.

"How long do you think… I mean, Pyrrha's too polite to _laugh_ but… Worst case scenario, if she's too embarrassed to ever speak to me again… I can always crawl in a hole and die, right?"

"What?"

In a garbled rush, Jaune blurts, "How badly can a person screw up asking their best friend out for coffee?"

Ren doesn't answer. Jaune whimpers into his hands.

"...that badly, huh."

Still, Ren says nothing.

Jaune lifts his head. "Ren?"

As calm as ever, Ren clears his throat and turns to his partner. "Nora? It's happened."

Nora removes one headphone and stares between Ren and Jaune.

" ...no," she whispers.

Ren nods.

Nora throws the headphones off and leaps off the bed towards the boys. She clutches Jaune by the face, turning his head this way and that to confirm. Grinning from ear to ear, she says, in awe, "They said this day would never come!"

"I don't know what you're— You're freaking me out a little," Jaune says, blushing furiously.

Smiling, Ren pats Jaune's knee. "Jaune, you should have no problem asking Pyrrha out for coffee."

"Huh? But— Why would—?"

The door opens, and Pyrrha walks back in wearing a bathrobe, her hair up in a towel.

Nora plants her hands on her hips and announces, "Shower time!"

Quick as a whip, she grabs her shower caddy, grabs Ren and _his_ caddy, and the two of them are out the door faster than either Pyrrha or Jaune can get a word in.

"What was that about?" Pyrrha asks.

Jaune has no idea what just happened, so he can only shrug and mumble, "Your guess is as good as mine."

Pyrrha makes a turning gesture with her finger. "Could you...?"

Jaune rotates on the bed so that he's staring at the far wall. They did this all the time when they were living together their first semester. The struggles of living in a co-ed dorm.

He hears Pyrrha toweling off her hair behind him. "Are you feeling any better?"

"Oh, yeah. Much better," Jaune lies. There's a dent in the wall in front of him where someone (probably Nora) threw a heavy object. Jaune stares at the off-color gash with the intense hope of discovering it held the secret of the universe. "Hey, so, uh, do you have plans for tonight? My sisters wanted to go to a nice dinner and I thought… well, we need to celebrate today, right?" he finishes. Jaune kicks himself.

Pyrrha sighs behind him. "That sounds wonderful, Jaune, but I can't. There's this big sponsorship gala the first night of the tournament festival. I'm expected to be there."

"Wow. That sounds important."

"It's boring," Pyrrha admits dejectedly. "It's all company heads and marketing teams. Pumpkin Pete's always has a presence so I have to go promote the brand." She shuffles from foot to foot. "I'd rather be at dinner with you and your sisters, honestly."

Jaune chews his lip as he hears Pyrrha finish getting dressed. He swallows down the lump in his throat and leans his elbows on his knees to stare at the wall even more intently. "Do you...do you have to go alone? Are you allowed a plus one?"

"Jaune, you'd hate it," Pyrrha says, walking over to sit next to him on the bed. She's wearing a simple dress and her glasses. Her hair hangs in a damp, tangled mess over one shoulder. "It's all stuffy old shirts watching you parade around like a posable doll. I'll be fine. You should have dinner with your family. Go have fun."

"We can make your gala fun," he says encouragingly. "We can make fun of all the old shirts. Do they have a chocolate fountain? We'll steal it."

Pyrrha raises a brow at him, but Jaune can tell she's trying not to smile. "It's formal attire."

"My mother made me pack a dress shirt."

"It's _black tie,_ Jaune."

"Amarilla brought an evening dress. I think it has a bust in my size."

Pyrrha laughs, and though Jaune's heart feels like it's been on a rollercoaster the entire day, somehow _this_ makes him feel the most grounded. Pyrrha in glasses and socks, trying to save the world with kindness; him back in their old room smelling like lavender candles and electricity, wanting to become someone worthwhile. They're the same as they always were.

"What do you say?" he asks with a grin.

She tilts her head in his direction. "You don't have to do this for me, Jaune. I'm not asking you to come."

"I want to," he promises. Stomping out as many butterflies as he can, Jaune nudges her with his elbow. "I'd do it even if I _didn't_ get a free meal out of it with my favorite person in the world."

Pyrrha smiles and nudges him back. She stands to retrieve her scroll. "I think Neptune wears a suit your size. Let me get you his number."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** On AO3, this story is tagged "angst with a happy ending" so don't fret too much. Fret only a little. Maybe...maybe a little more. Fret a medium amount.


	9. Chapter 9

On the walk over to the Mistrali student dorms, Jaune gives Amarilla a call to update her. She's in the hotel room with the rest of the Arc clan and puts him on speaker so Jaune can explain about Pyrrha's gala and promise to make it up to them for cancelling plans so last minute. Flava shushes him, saying she made plans that evening on her own anyway. Gia says she and Rusty would appreciate the opportunity to have dinner to themselves. Amarilla promised Rawaya she'd go celebrity-watching with her in Vale. They're all very understanding. _Too_ understanding. Jaune has a nagging suspicion that this is all somehow coordinated. Nevertheless, he hopes they all have a good evening out. He wishes Gia a great time on her date.

"Thanks," she says, in her no-nonsense way. "You enjoy yours too." And then she hangs up before Jaune can get a word in.

Jaune spends the next hour with Team SSSN in their dorm room, fitting into Neptune's suit jacket and slacks with only some very minimal safety-pinning — one of several tricks he picked up from his oldest sisters when they reached dating age. Scarlet David has a crimson shirt that matches the very quick glance Jaune got of Pyrrha's dress. He's allowed to borrow it with a devout promise not to spill anything on it. Sage offers him some performance wax for his hair, but after a few differently styled attempts with _plenty_ of commentary from the peanut gallery, Jaune accepts his fate to look twelve years old until he dies. Finding formal shoes in Jaune's size turns into a quest.

At the edge of Sun's bed, Jaune tries on his fifth set of dress shoes, acquired by SSSN from some of their Mistrali classmates under false pretenses. As Jaune kicks out of shoes and attempts to lace up new ones, Neptune asks him, in complete seriousness, for relationship advice. Jaune offers what little insight he can, though it seems paltry in comparison to the solid favor Neptune's doing him by lending him his suit.

"I dunno what to tell you, man," Jaune says after Sun fills him in on the details of what went down with Neptune and Weiss before the dance. "You could just apologize. Tell her why you turned her down."

Neptune hangs off the edge of his own bed, looking dismal. "But then she'll know I'm not cool."

In the next bed over, Sun smirks. "You're cool?"

Neptune throws his pillow at Suns' face. Sun ducks and Sage catches it from where he's leaning against the wall in the corner of the room.

Jaune attempts to do something with the inches of loose space in his current pair of shoes. He stands, tries to walk around, and trips over himself spectacularly. Switching over to another pair of shoes, Jaune looks over at Neptune. The blue haired boy looked distinctly less cool than Jaune's first impression of him. "Why _did_ you turn Weiss down?"

"He can't dance," Scarlet, Sage, and Sun provide in unison.

Jaune stills. "Wait, seriously? You turned down a date with _Weiss Schnee_ rather than admitting you can't move to music?" He does his best to be sympathetic as Neptune glares at his teammates, and yet, "That...actually makes me feel a bit better about myself."

Scarlet returns from digging through the pile of clothes in the closet with an armful of various mismatched shoes and drops them on the floor in front of Jaune. "What do _you_ have to feel bad about, mate? You scored a date with Pyrrha bloody Nykos."

Jaune flushes bright red. "It's not a date."

 _"Nothing_ about it doesn't sound like a date," Sun answers cheekily.

"It's _not,"_ Jaune insists. "She's my best friend—"

"Who asked you out," Sun says.

"To a work event!"

"A work event that happens to be dinner," Sun counters.

"That requires evening formal. Where all her spiffy colleagues will be," Scarlet adds.

Neptune makes an anguished sound. "He's not even _trying!"_

From the corner of the room, Sage nods in agreement.

"She's not— I wasn't— It's _Pyrrha_. It's not a date," Jaune argues feebly.

Sun throws Jaune a pair of finger guns. "But you _want_ it to be."

"Look it doesn't— It doesn't _matter_ what I want it to be," Jaune stammers, trying hard not to sound as flustered as he feels. He gives up on his current pair of shoes and stands up straight to glare at SSSN. "Pyrrha's my partner. She hates social events, so I'm keeping her company. No strings attached."

Neptune sounds intrigued. "For real?"

"Yes. For real." Jaune thinks of his conversation with Weiss that morning and sighs. "Nep, just go talk to Weiss. Forget about being cool or trying to impress her. Say you're sorry, admit you screwed up, and have a conversation with her. Like friends." He turns a little redder. "I hear that's the way to go."

Neptune rubs the back of his neck and looks Jaune over. "You really think that'll work?"

"It sounds like bollocks, but you're at rock bottom," Scarlet tells Neptune. "Might as well."

"If nothing else, it'll make her day," Jaune promises.

Neptune nods thoughtfully. "I guess it can't hurt." Having made up his mind, he stands and offers Jaune a fist to bump with a grin. "Thanks, man. You're pretty cool."

"You gotta raise your standards," Jaune chuffs, but bumps fists anyway.

Sun comes over and tosses his pair of barely-worn dress shoes around Jaune's neck tied by their laces. "Seriously, dude. You ever need anything, Team SSSN's got your back."

"But I only helped Neptune."

Sun throws his arm around Jaune's shoulder and stage-whispers, "You got him to stop bitching about Weiss. We owe you."

There's a pleasant knock at the door. "Jaune? Are you ready?"

"One sec, Pyrrha!" Jaune calls, scrambling to get himself into Sun's shoes. They're about half an inch loose, but he'd completely lost track of time. He layers on a second pair of socks and prays. Maybe Pyrrha could forgive him for not being on top of his dance moves.

"You've got this, mate," Scarlet encourages, then he and his teammates shove Jaune out of the room.

He trips in the new shoes and stumbles into a startled Pyrrha waiting just outside the door. She catches him before they both end up on the floor.

"Sorry, sorry!" Jaune blurts, straightening back up quickly. "The shoes don't really…"

Jaune's words trail off. He blinks at Pyrrha in full makeup and her floor-length, scarlet gown with its high neck and lack of sleeves.

"No, no, it's my fault," she's saying, apologetic as she adjusts his skewed jacket, "I shouldn't have been so close to the door. I just wanted to make sure you were getting everything sorted out with SSSN. I didn't mean to rush you, Jaune."

"Dress."

Pyrrha meets his eyes in confusion. "What?"

"You...dress," Jaune says. Oh no. Keep going. "You _in_ dress. Look good. Good look on you. That dress."

Nailed it.

"Oh." Pyrrha drops her gaze back to his lapels with a shy smile and finishes smoothing them out. "You… clean up pretty nicely yourself."

"Compliment her on her hair!" Neptune hisses from behind the door.

"Tell her she looks smoking hot!" Sun chimes in.

Jaune kicks the door with the back of his heel to shut them up. He swallows down the butterflies flapping so hard they're about to lift him off the ground and holds an arm out to Pyrrha. "Shall we?"

She takes his arm. "Let's."

* * *

The party is just as swanky as Pyrrha promised. And just as boring.

Despite Jaune's newfound appreciation for the ability to be invisible in a crowd, he realizes belatedly that there exists a purgatory between everyone knowing your name and no one caring who you are. That purgatory is called "Being on the Arm of Pyrrha Nikos." Everyone at the Pumpkin Pete's gala knows Pyrrha on a first name basis, and each and every one of those people seems committed to being on first name basis with Jaune by the end of the evening, too. Fortunately, Pyrrha plays politics as well as she spars. Through dinner and drinks and networking, she keeps Jaune's introductions short and pointed. Jaune was her hunting partner; oh, he'd returned home last semester for a family emergency; yes, they should all look forward to wonderful things from him. Jaune blushes through every introduction, fighting the urge to compliment Pyrrha in turn when so many compliments were already being thrown her way from how she looked to how she fought.

After desert, Jaune takes Pyrrha out on the dancefloor for some tame dancing, as Jaune's oversized shoes and Pyrrha's notoriety didn't really allow for much creativity. The dancing portion of the evening doesn't last as long as Jaune would have liked before someone taps him on the shoulder and cuts in to dance and catch up with Pyrrha. After a few switched partners, Jaune finds himself solo by the chocolate fountain, keeping an eye on Pyrrha as she chats up some wealthy sponsors. He holds a cup under the liquid chocolate and sips at it, waiting for the agreed upon signal to save Pyrrha from yet another particularly boring conversation.

Jaune is distracted when a young man only a few years older than him in black tie approaches the chocolate fountain from the other side of the table. His strawberry blonde hair is unkempt in a way that could just as easily be real bedhead as opposed to a styled hairdo. Looking as weary as Jaune feels, he absentmindedly dunks an impromptu kebab of marshmallows into the lower basin of the fountain before holding it up to the elaborate ice sculpture nearby, freezing the chocolate.

"That's the kind of ingenuity I can get behind," Jaune says conversationally.

"When you've been to as many of these as I have, you learn to entertain yourself," the young man says with a wry smile. He pulls off a frozen marshmallow and pops it into his mouth with a high arc. This guy was clearly the coolest person here by a wide margin.

"You go to a lot of these?" Jaune asks, sticking a couple wooden sticks in his cup of chocolate and holding it up near the ice sculpture.

"Way more than I'd like," the young man answers. "You?"

Pulling the cup off, Jaune finds himself with a solid chocolate popsicle. "It's my first one," Jaune says and holds out his frozen chunk of chocolate. "To the socially awkward."

"Cheers," the guy says, tapping his frozen marshmallows to Jaune's chocolate popsicle. "You stagging it tonight, too?"

Pyrrha flashes Jaune a three fingered hand signal behind her back while keeping a perfectly composed expression facing her conversation partners.

"I am actually search and rescue," Jaune jokes, setting down his chocolate popsicle. "Uh, make sure no one takes this?"

The guy nods and Jaune puts on his most suave face to cut through to Pyrrha. She glances over her shoulder to see him coming and her polite-society smile turns wide and achingly genuine. It makes Jaune want to do all sorts of embarrassingly sappy things.

He resists the urge, instead offering her his arm and clearing his throat. "Miss Nikos, you're needed by table four. The stupendously eloquent Mrs. Burrows needs a word."

Pyrrha bites down on a grin and almost breaks character, but manages to keep civil as she bids the group of adults goodbye and takes Jaune's arm.

"How was that?" Jaune whispers as they walk off back towards the chocolate fountain.

Pyrrha chuckles only when she's sure they're out of hearing range. "With those theatrics, you're going to get us thrown out of this incredibly riveting party."

"Oh _no,_ not _that,"_ Jaune says with as much sarcasm as he's capable of. Pyrrha snorts on a laugh. "But seriously," he continues, "you've _got_ to be done talking to everyone you need to talk to, right?"

The young man by the chocolate fountain lights up as Pyrrha and Jaune approach, waving to them.

"Just about," she says brightly, stepping away from Jaune to take the hand offered to her by chocolate fountain guy.

"I should have known the only other chill person here would have come on your arm," he says to Pyrrha, lifting the back of her hand to his lips for a kiss.

"I only keep the best company," Pyrrha says teasingly. She smiles at the guy, and it isn't the same stilted, civil grin she's been giving everyone else all night.

Suddenly, Jaune has very different feelings about chocolate fountain guy. He tightens the arm Pyrrha is still holding onto.

"I see you've managed to pull off your flash freezing theory," she says, noting the small pile of chocolate encased marshmallows he's stacked on a small plate.

"Not nearly as impressive as your boyfriend's mastery of chocolate," he says, nodding to Jaune's chocolate on a stick, looking genuinely impressed.

"We're just partners," Jaune and Pyrrha correct at exactly the same time. Jaune hopes he isn't blushing as faintly as Pyrrha is.

"I see," the young man says knowingly. He toasts his plate of marshmallows to the two of them. "Well, any friend of Pyrrha's is a friend of mine."

"Right. Any...friend of Pyrrha," Jaune repeats awkwardly.

"Have you two been properly introduced?" Pyrrha asks, looking between the two boys. "Robin, this is Jaune. Jaune, Robin and I were at Sanctum together."

The boys shake hands. Jaune makes his grip tight.

"So you've known each other a while?" Jaune asks, looking between Robin and Pyrrha in an attempt to stomp out the impractical jealousy coiling in his stomach.

"She was a freshman while I was a senior, but even then she knew how to make an impression in the arena," Robin says.

Pyrrha is blushing the reddest Jaune has _ever_ seen her. "Robin, I was just starting out…"

"Five years on, you can't use the excuse of beginners luck anymore," he teases. "I can't wait to see you go all the way in this tournament."

Feeling the need to say something equally nice, his own flustering ego be damned, Jaune moves his arm to drape lightly across Pyrrha's waist and says, "We're all very proud of her."

Grinning, Robin playfully nudges Pyrrha. "Keep this one. I like him."

Someone calls for Robin across the dancefloor. Jaune watches Robin's smile do the thing that Pyrrha's smile does when she goes from talking to a friend to talking about her career. He waves at the person then turns back to Pyrrha with an exaggerated eye roll.

"Are you almost done with your rounds?" Pyrrha asks him sympathetically.

"My rounds are never done," he sighs. "You, at least they know by face."

That piques Jaune's curiosity. He assumed Robin was a tournament fighter like Pyrrha. "Do they...not know you by face?"

Pyrrha brings a hand up to her mouth apologetically. "Oh, Jaune! I'm so sorry, I thought you knew."

Lost, Jaune looks from Pyrrha to Robin. "What am I supposed to know?"

With a look of mischievousness to rival Nora's, Robin clears his throat and says, in a high-pitched bubbly voice, _"Hey there, boys and girls! Don't forget to brush your teeth and floss after every bite! That's the way of the warren!"_

Jaune shrieks.

"You're Robin _Christopherson?!"_ he says with the most un-manliest squeal. "You're the voice of Pumpkin Pete?!"

In the same voice, Robin exclaims, _"You bet your bushy tail, Jauney!"_

Without thinking, Jaune scrambles for a napkin from the pile next to the chocolate fountain and begins frantically patting down his pants for a pen. "Can I— I'm so sorry, I never do this— Could I get an autograph?"

Robin pulls a fountain pen from the inside of his tuxedo jacket and signs Jaune's napkin. Still in his Pumpkin Pete's voice, he winks at Pyrrha and says, _"Definitely keep this one."_

The same person who called for Robin calls for him again and, dropping the voice, he sighs and says he'll be right over. He hands Jaune his napkin and kisses Pyrrha's hand again, making her promise to message him on his scroll before the next gala event. She promises and he goes off to handle the gentleman across the dancefloor. As he leaves, Jaune can make out the fluff of his cottontail just beneath the tails of his tuxedo.

"I can't believe you're friends with _Robin Christopherson,"_ Jaune whispers to Pyrrha in awe, reverently tucking the signed napkin into his breast pocket.

"We're colleagues," Pyrrha says, stifling a yawn. "I only ever see him at events like this."

"I can't believe I got to _meet_ Robin Christopherson," Jaune gushes. "And he's so _cool!_ Without even trying at all. Wow! I just…" He catches himself. "Uh, I didn't make a total fool of myself, did I?"

"You...certainly left an impression," Pyrrha says tactfully, patting his arm. She yawns again.

"Are you tired?"

"Exhausted," Pyrrha says, smiling appreciatively. "I think no one will mind if we slip out of here."

"Sounds good to me."

Jaune swipes his chocolate popsicle and the two of them slip out of the party relatively unbothered. Pyrrha's limo arrives for her and Jaune tries not to be as much of a fanboy about riding home in a limo as he was on the trip there. As they make their way back to the dorms, Pyrrha kicks off her shoes and Jaune makes short work of his chocolate snack. Checking his scroll, he's surprised to find it's way later than he thought.

"I thought time went slower when you _weren't_ having fun," Jaune jokes.

When Pyrrha doesn't answer, he glances over and sees her nodding off to the rumbling of the limo.

"You wanna lean on me?" Jaune asks.

Pyrrha considers for a minute, then nods and leans her head on Jaune's shoulder, tucking up her bare feet into the empty space beside her. His pulse spikes with her comforting weight at his side.

"I'll wake you up when we reach the dorms," he promises.

"Thank you," she says, nudging for permission before encircling Jaune's arm with hers to get a little more comfortable.

"Don't even think about it," he answers, tentatively leaning his cheek against her hair. "I had a great time."

"Not just the party," Pyrrha says, surprising him. "Thank you for always being my friend."

"I should be the one thanking you," he murmurs as the outline of Beacon draws closer, illuminated by the light of the broken moon. "I really think I'll be back here next year, and it's because you never gave up on me, even when I did."

He feels Pyrrha smiling sleepily against his arm. He hopes she can feel him smiling into her hair.

They're quiet until the limo pulls up in front of the Beacon dorms. Jaune gently shakes Pyrrha awake and steps out of the limo to help her get out. He ties her heels together and hands them to her to loop across her purse.

"Will I see you before the doubles tournament?" she asks, as Jaune sticks his head back in the limo to make sure Pyrrha didn't leave anything.

"I'll be back here first thing in the morning," Jaune promises.

Finding nothing out of the ordinary in the backseat of the limo, Jaune turns back to Pyrrha.

"So I'll...see you tomorrow?" Pyrrha asks.

"First thing," Jaune says again. He stands awkwardly for a moment longer. When Pyrrha says nothing, he realizes he's staring. Rocking back on his heels, Jaune turns to open the car door. "Well, uh, goodnight then."

"Jaune?" Pyrrha says suddenly.

He stops. "Yeah?"

Pyrrha bites her lip hard, then blurts, "Do you have to go back to your hotel? If you're going to be here in the morning anyway… well, your bed's just as good as you left it."

Jaune blinks at Pyrrha for a moment, processing her words through the rush of joy that floods him. He doesn't have to say goodbye. Not tonight. Not yet.

"Yeah. Okay," he says.

Pyrrha smiles and Jaune shuts the car door behind him.

In their dorm room, Ren dozes heavily in his bed while Nora's mild snores occasionally punctuate the air. Pyrrha digs out one of Jaune's old sleep shirts that had gotten mixed with Ren's laundry and lets him use her spare set of sheets, quietly dressing the bed as he swipes one of the backup toothbrushes Ren keeps in his drawer. He bids Pyrrha goodnight in a whisper and lays in his old bed, listening to Nora's snoring and Ren's steady breathing. Jaune missed this more than he could ever say.

But he can't sleep. His heart is still trying to come to terms with the wonderful evening they just had, torn between wanting to pour his heart and soul out to Pyrrha and…not doing that. Jaune admits he's in desperate need of some kind of guidance. He'd usually go to _Pyrrha_ for advice, but…

It occurs to Jaune all at once that the only person he wants to talk to about his feelings for Pyrrha...is Pyrrha.

He turns that over for a second, then decides it's not the _worst_ idea he's ever had. Gently clearing his throat, he whispers, "Pyr? Are you still up?"

Just as quietly, she says, "Yes, Jaune."

"Can I...ask you for some advice?" he hedges.

"Of course."

Jaune takes a deep breath and stares at his ceiling. "What do...what would you do if you...liked someone? _Like_ -liked someone. Like your heart did this weird bird in your ribcage thing and you couldn't keep food down and your mouth stopped working. Like that."

"Oh." Pyrrha's voice sounds surprised for that one note and Jaune's breath catches. Her tone changes though, sounding more like her instructor voice when they trained, when she says, "Well, I'd start by figuring out if they liked me, too. Looking for...signs."

"You mean like flirting or sexy clothing?"

Pyrrha lets out a breathy, self-conscious laugh. "Um, no, not exactly. More like if the two of you are on the same wavelength. If you seem to understand each other without speaking."

Jaune nods in the dark. "Then what?"

He hears Pyrrha readjust in bed. "Then I'd tell myself to be brave and tell them I liked them."

Jaune laughs awkwardly. "Easier said than done."

Pyrrha mirrors his laugh. "Of course."

Scratching his head, Jaune parses out his words. He stares intently at the window outline cast by the moonlight on his ceiling. "Yeah. No, I, uh, I got that far. But then what would you do? Sing them a song? Buy them flowers? Take them out to coffee?"

Pyrrha's answering laugh is a little more genuine. "What?"

Jaune blushes in the dark. "I mean, that's what you're supposed to do, isn't it? When you like someone, you're supposed to sing to her on stage at the dance or carve her name into a tree or, I dunno, slay a Nevermore in her honor or something." He pauses. "Aren't you?"

He can hear Pyrrha's careful breathing and it's making him want to fidget with how seemingly calm she is. "If it were me," Pyrrha says softly, "I'd be honest with them. No schemes, no games. I've always believed that you can't get it wrong if it's the truth." She pauses a beat, and adds, sadly, "That's what I would do."

There's no rationalizing away the longing in her voice. Jaune's chest constricts, the realization painful. She _likes_ someone.

She'd clearly thought this through a lot, so there must be someone she's going through this same feeling with. And here Jaune is, like a stupid idiot, trying to sort through his own feelings without even taking hers into consideration.

"Right. Thanks," he says, hating how hard it is for him just to get the two words out.

Pyrrha doesn't answer. Jaune rolls away to face the opposite wall. A long awkward silence settles between them and Jaune desperately hopes it means she's fallen asleep and not that she's waiting for him to continue. He's not sure he can figure out breathing normally again, let alone holding a conversation.

Of course she liked someone. Pyrrha had such a big heart, it would be impossible for her not to. All this time, and Jaune was completely clueless as per usual. She'd never mentioned him (or her?) and now he was coming to his own realization too late. He was such an idiot.

No, this was okay. They were still friends. There was solace in that. He hadn't messed everything up by putting it on the table that he liked her. He hadn't lost her forever. Jaune breathes deep to fight the threatening tears and believes, in his heart and soul, that he can make peace with that.

"What's her name?"

Pyrrha's voice, very awake, startles Jaune out of his spiralling thoughts. "W-What?"

"The girl you like," Pyrrha elaborates, in an oddly detached tone of voice. "Is she...is she from your hometown?"

Jaune panics. Now he has to come up with a fake love interest and backstory, create some compellingly realistic name and a set of traits that would catch his eye. _And_ he has to lie about it well enough to fool Pyrrha. His first instinct is to steal a character from _X-Ray and Vav_ and pretend she's a real person.

"She's not. She's from...she's from school."

Pyrrha is quiet for a beat. "...what's she like?"

There's something in Pyrrha's voice that sounds so _vulnerable_ that Jaune can't bring himself to lie to her. Sighing, he rolls onto his back to stare up at the ceiling once more and valiantly attempts to talk to Pyrrha, his best friend, about Pyrrha, his unrequited love.

"She's...incredible," Jaune says into the dark. "She's brilliant and talented. She's the bravest person I know. She's easy to talk with and thinks I'm way funnier than I actually am and she…" His voice wavers. "She's the first real friend I ever had and I'm scared to mess it up."

More long silence. Long enough that Jaune starts to sweat because oh no, he was too obvious, wasn't he? She knew. After all his careful tiptoeing, he stuck his foot in his mouth after all and messed everything up.

With that promising thought, Jaune awkwardly tries to salvage anything he can with a joke. "Hey, listen—"

"Do you want to get coffee?"

Jaune drops his head to the side. He can't see Pyrrha too well in the dark, but he can see that her silhouette is facing him. Tense. "Coffee?" he repeats.

"The beverage," Pyrrha clarifies.

About fifteen different trains of thought are on a collision course in Jaune's head and he can make sense of none of them. "I don't— You don't drink— Yes."

Her shoulders relax. "Yes?"

"Yeah. Or tea," he adds hastily. "Since neither of us...drink coffee."

"Right," Pyrrha agrees. "Or ice cream, even."

Since his brain has completely unplugged, Jaune says, "Or dinner."

"...dinner?"

"Yeah."

"With...your sisters?" Pyrrha asks tentatively.

Jaune swallows. "With my...self."

They stare at each other in the dark for a minute in which Jaune is sure his heartbeat is echoing through the halls of Beacon.

"Okay," she says.

"...Yeah?"

Even in the poor lighting, Pyrrha's smile is like the sun. "Yeah."

"Okay," he answers, grinning back.

"After the doubles round tomorrow?"

"I'll pick you up. We'll pick a booth on the fairgrounds."

"Perfect."

"Great."

They smile at each other in the dark. Pyrrha clears her throat. "We should probably get some rest."

"Yeah. Good idea."

She rolls over to face Ren and Nora's beds. "Goodnight, Jaune."

Resisting the urge to bolt out of bed and sprint around Beacon doing cartwheels, he whispers back, "Goodnight, Pyrrha."

After that, Jaune stares at his ceiling and can't stop smiling. He's not going to sleep tonight at all.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** This story legit has the BEST reviewers of any story in any fandom I've ever written in. Seriously, I don't think I've ever had such a dedicated following for a fanfic in the fourteen years I have been writing on the internet. Shout-outs this chapter to ChrisRainicornon AO3 and Harmonious Arkos Sloth for their ongoing support and dedication. You can thank them for this chapter by going to read their fics :)

I usually don't like to post a chapter without already having the next chapter finished, but I've been working on a full length novel this last year and you guys have been so lovely and patient, this is my gift to you. I can't promise when chapter 10 is coming, but I am vowing to finish the last three chapters of this fic eventually!


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